Wednesday

We were able to move the bedroom back to it's proper place in the house last night - spent from 3:30 to 9:30 doing that or things closely related to it.  I managed to smash a tiny portion of my left thumb with a hammer, so I have a blood blister and bruise on it - found a few other assorted minor injuries this morning in the shower - no memory of getting any of them, but they're new.

We ended up having Mexican last night - cheese enchiladas for me.  It was okay, and provided enough energy to keep going until we had achieved a degree of order in the room, but I woke up with indigestion today, so I have a few regrets on that score.  142.8 this morning - it didn't do much, and my fingers are swollen, so some of that .6 pound gain (is digital technology really that helpful? ) is probably stiffness water from the work we did.

Sleep wasn't so great, after all that wishing to be back in the bedroom.  The dining room had one benefit to sleep - it was extremely dark.  The bedroom - especially with the decorative curtains down, as they are at the moment and will be until I buy new ones - is much lighter.  Also colder, which helped with reducing hot flashes, but the tradeoff was, well, being cold most of the night.  I know, I cannot be satisfied.  The ceiling fan is a huge benefit, though - moving cool air is a wonderful thing at my age.

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but our Easter menu is going to be pretty primal:

• prime rib (ordered from the Honeybaked Ham company, so there may be some un-wished-for ingredients in there) au jus, with horseradish sauce
• mashed potatoes with sour cream and cream cheese
• Southern-style green beans, done with onions and bacon in the pressure cooker
• possibly shrimp Remoulade, if there are any unfrozen shrimp at Costco on Saturday
• nut-crusted amaretto cheesecake - the same one we had at Christmas
• flourless chocolate cake with berries - I didn't pay attention the first time I made this, but all the sweetness comes from the chocolate used - it's basically beaten egg whites and chocolate
• possibly an ambrosia salad - not primal at all, but it is Lee's birthday and he wants one
• possibly croissants - I'm still debating whether or not I'm going to do these - and if I am, I need to start them tomorrow.  They'll be a 3-day process, indicating some amount of fermentation, so if not Primal, they would probably appease the WAPF folks

Now that the bedroom is off the front burner, I can start getting this stuff ready to go for Sunday.

Tuesday

Apparently, my body wanted those fries.

We ate at Chili's last night, owing to an urgent need to do some shopping for the bathroom (progress is being made at last!) and for the impending visitors this coming weekend.  We both had naked bacon cheeseburgers and fries - and I ate every last french fry.  They tasted amazing, but I figured I would be paying for them this morning. 

Not so.  The scale - on two attempts - reads 142.2.  I'm cool with that.  Only two meals yesterday, and no snacks, so maybe there were other things going on.  Which isn't to say I won't pay in some other way - I have a touch of indigestion this morning that could certainly be associated with french fry consumption.

Barring any nasty things today, we will be able to resume sleeping in our bedroom tonight.  The carpet arrives this morning, sometime in the next 3 hours.  I anticipate a busy evening - will need to eat well at dinner tonight, with lots of heart-healthy saturated fat for energy and stamina, as we get the closet rebuilt and filled, move the bed (nearly impossible, by the way) and clear out the guest room.  I don't expect it will actually help my sleep, this move, but it will be nice to get back to semi-normal.

I have an appointment on Monday with a physician to discuss hormones.  I certainly hope they work, so I can get the sleep debt paid off.  A dependency on "PM" is not in my plans for old age, that's for sure.

Monday

Which follows Sunday, every seven days, like clockwork.  We had a reasonably good weekend, tempered by the fact that we are still sleeping in the dining room and the bathroom is not yet grouted, and seems like it never will be, unless we do it.  Fun with contractors.

I think that led to some stress weight for me - either from stress eating or from general cortisol activity.  I was at 141.6 on Saturday morning, 143.0 both yesterday and today.  I fought mightily not to go for a straight sugar buzz last night - and won, I might add.  Cheese saved me.  And Solitaire on the iPad - it's addictive enough that it kept me from getting up in search of candy.

As for the menopause and the hot flashes - I'm giving up.  Officially.  Calling the doctor today to ask about hormones.  Nothing is helping, except Advil PM - and I refuse to take that every night.  While I don't feel as ill as I did a few weeks ago, the damn hot flashes are more frequent and soggier than ever right now, and with life so catty-whampus because of the remodel, I'm at a breaking point.  So as soon as the doctor has had time to get the office open and the backlog of messages cleared, I'm calling.  I doubt they'll prescribe them without an appointment, which is a bummer, but hopefully I can get control over this in the near future.

Friday

Leg cramps again last night - one that had me out of bed around 5 am, I think.  I'm not sure why; yesterday's eating included some strawberries mid-day and a dinner of steak medallions with gravy, green beans, mashed potatoes, and wine.  There should have been enough carbs there to head anything off.  And I did as planned and took my magnesium citrate at bedtime (no un-wished-for side effects so far, but it didn't much help with sleep, either). 

We're going wine tasting at the art museum tonight, which should be interesting.  I don't know if it will be in the new part with the slanty walls or not - a bunch of slightly tipsy folks in eccentric architecture might make the newspapers, really.  Dinner out beforehand - I don't know what, yet.  A nice night to get out and wear some of the skinny clothes, for me, anyway.

I was down to 141.8 again this morning, so we are apparently eating for weight loss just now.  Lee is below 200 again and happy with that.  Elizabeth has had my sister (the one on statins) at her place for the past couple of days; I hope, but don't know, that she ate okay.  It's greek week there anyway, which isn't conducive to good nutrition, I believe.

One week and a bit until Easter.  It looks like we will be hosting dinner without too much trouble - we're having prime rib, mashed potatoes, southern-style green beans, salad of some sort (I'm trying to hold the line against an Ambrosia but think I will lose that battle), and a choice of amaretto cheesecake (nut crust) or flourless chocolate cake for dessert.  Not pure Paleo/primal/archevoral/whatever, but pretty close - I don't feel like we're violating our principles with anything.  On the other hand, my Easter tradition in previous years was to make croissants using the recipe in French Women Don't Get Fat - they are pretty darn good.  It's a 3-day process with a lot of rising, so I think fermentation occurs.  I could serve them with that caveat, or I could skip them this year.  This is still a matter of debate.

I'll probably make them.  I enjoy baking, so I've kind of missed working with dough this year.

Thursday

We had a very good dinner last night - either Salisbury Steak or pan-seared mini meatloaves with a mushroom cream gravy, and sliced tomatoes.  Consumed a full pound of ground beef (grassfed from Sun Prairie Beef) between us.  The recipe went something like this (not all steps are in strict order):

• Slice up 5-6 white button mushrooms (cremini would probably be better, but that's what I had)
• Mix about 2 tsp potato starch with a beaten egg in a large bowl
• Add parsley, dehydrated onion, garlic, salt and pepper to taste to the egg mixture
• Add 1 lb ground beef and mix thoroughly
• Form into 2 oval patties about 3/4" thick
• Heat 2 Tbsp ghee in a nonstick pan over medium heat
• Cook the patties in the ghee for about 5-7 minutes total, flipping them and removing when they hit rare (140 degrees per the instant read thermometer)
• Remove the patties to a plate and tent with foil to keep warm
• Saute the mushrooms in the ghee/drippings in the pan from the meat until browned
• Deglaze the pan with beef stock (probably 1/2-3/4 cup) and reduce to about 1/2 original volume
• Add around 1/2 cup of half-and-half and reduce again until sauce thickens
• Pour sauce over beef patties, distributing mushrooms evenly

I know I ate both chips and trail mix yesterday - the latter even after reading Gary Taubes' new article about sugar - as well as a chocolate mint thingie and a lot of walnuts after dinner, so I should have had a fair carb load going to sleep last night.  But, wonder of wonders, I had leg cramps - the first in quite some time.  I did not want them, and they did not signal new frontiers in weight: I was at 142.2 this morning.  Not sure what that was about, but I skipped my magnesium (oxide) at breakfast and will take another mag citrate at bedtime tonight to see if that settles their hash.

Had cottage cheese and turkey bacon for breakfast this morning; I mean to make some of the Primal Quick/Easy cookbook beef/bison sausage patties this weekend for heating up next week, just for variety, and to make cooking less of a pain in the morning (Lee ends up doing all of it, bless him).

Wednesday

Let's see, what did happen over the past 24 hours?

I gave Lee some cucurmin at breakfast, since he'd been complaining of some pain in finger joints when playing golf, and I figured it couldn't hurt.  It's too early to tell if it's helping or not, but I'll keep adding it to his vitamins.  We also took giant doses of fish oil last evening; post painting (but we have a color on the walls that I can live with and Lee isn't unalterably against (yet - it's an antique red, and pretty intense).  It helped me as usual; he was still sore this morning but said he felt better than he had previously after similar exertion.  I feel fine today.

Breakfast yesterday was eggs, turkey bacon and turkey sausage; no lunch but I did have some trail mix.  Dinner was Chipotle - a bowl with barbacoa (apparently, though, only the carnitas don't have soybean oil in them) but no beans; I did have rice.  And lots of guacamole.  A few walnuts, a few chocolates.  That was pretty much it.  142.4 this morning, so the loss of my weekend gain continues.

He says it way better than I could

Tom Naughton on the Chicago School Lunch story: http://www.fathead-movie.com/index.php/2011/04/11/this-will-make-you-lose-your-lunch/.