My birthday is two months from next Friday. I will be 74, the age my grandmother and also her elder daughter died. When my mom turned 80, I teased her that she hadn’t expected to live that long. She laughed and said it was true.
SEVENTY-FOUR
health
ADDING UP
We’ve been having an exciting spring so far, which reminds me of that Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times. It’s an English translation of a genuine Chinese curse, but I heard it when I was still quite young, perhaps in my 20s. Wikipedia reminds us of the obvious that the “expression is ironic: ‘interesting’ times are usually times of trouble.” I would add complication and challenge. Today’s interesting times mostly seem concerned with graft and bullying and self-aggrandizement. Alas, I am not the one profiting, gaining power, or advancing my image.
COLD
We’re in Portland just now, and it’s in the 20s outside. I ran three miles here yesterday and walked a couple more, up and down NW Portland streets. I planned to walk three miles this morning, but maybe not in this cold.
We tested negative again yesterday. This means I have not been sick (with anything) for at least three years. Well, there is an issue with the blue cheese… But no cold or flu or covid. We are fully vaccinated and boosted and hopeful we will be able to see family next weekend.
Eagles, hummingbirds, teaching writing, childbirth, and life expectancy. What we saw a few days ago on the coast:
52 WEEKS + 2 DAYS
I assumed that a year was precisely 52 weeks, but had never done the math. That is odd for a lot of reasons, mostly because I was always good at arithmetic and algebra and geometry etc. I worked figures in my head back when I was running regularly in my 40s and 50s. Anyway, I created a calendar and realized that a year is more than 52 weeks. Add two days and a third during leap year.
The weather is changing. We have been grateful for rain, for cooling temperatures, and colorful leaves on our longer drives. Because nearly all my life has involved beginning school in the fall, this is the season for something new.
A year ago today, I decided to take charge of my daily habits, eat a better diet, lose weight, stop wasting food, and live a more physically active daily life. I was retired and so had time to devote to taking better care of myself, covid had forced me to shop less often and pay more attention to food in my fridge and on my pantry shelves, my Body Mass Index put me in the “overweight” category which was a risk factor for covid I could do something about (unlike my age), and I had begun winding down an intense creative production. I needed a new focus.
Three other events impressed me, one from personal experience and two from “authority” figures. When sitting and watching television, my fat pressed so hard into my belly that I sometimes experienced cramps and that seemed scary. An article suggested that humans need to fast for at least ten hours overnight to rest our digestion and that made a lot of sense to me. And Samantha Bee announced on her show (which I love) that “diets don’t work!” Well, of course they do, I thought. Nothing motivates me like a good argument. I had lost weight without trying during cross country season when I was often too tired to eat when I got home from a long day and when grief stopped me eating after my mother died.
And then I thought more about what both Bee was saying and my own experience of deliberately and successfully dieting after childbirth. The trouble with dieting is that what most people regard as “a diet” is something to do to lose (or gain) weight and then they return to the poor habits they had before. Surprise! They end up back where they started.
I needed a permanent change.
I would weigh myself every day, I would expect my weight to fluctuate, but I would track the same day of the week as the one that “counted.” I would meticulously count and cut calories, but allow for higher calorie days since that is actually helpful to maintaining a normal metabolism. Since I began on a Friday, the date that mattered would be the last day of seven, Thursdays. Over the past year my weight was stable 3 weeks, I gained weight by the end of 11 weeks, and for the other 38 weeks, I lost. Sometimes I lost a couple ounces, sometimes a pound.
I set up a chart on my computer to track what I ate each day. This was not merely a diet, but my intention to radically reform my eating habits: more vegetables and fruits, regular mealtimes, only occasional no- or low-calorie snacks. I set up a sample weekly menu (that I referred to less and less, whenever I was stuck about what to make for meals) and typical lo-cal meals, goal weight, and overall aspirations, appointments, and accomplishments—first to be “Normal Weight” according to my Body Mass Index, then to achieve my prior ideal weight during cross country season. I was in it for the long haul, and assumed it would take me at least a year to get where I wanted to be.
The chart grew more complicated as I went along. I added tracking for minutes and then miles I walked and where I went. Later I added miles run. I tracked my vitamin D and calcium. I tracked the days I went to the post office for my mail (once or twice a week) and grocery shopping (every three weeks). I measured myself so that I would know when I had a waist under 31″ because that’s supposed to be healthier for me. I regained a sense of limited control over my body and health.
- My BMI is under 21,
- I lost 40 pounds,
- my waist measures 29″ and my hips are under 37″,
- old favorite clothing stashed in a bin now fits (items I never expected to wear again but kept for their fabrics),
- new LL Bean petite 6 jeans fit (in my youth, before size inflation, my measurements would have made me a size 9/10, and size 2 did not even exist),
- I walk about 25 miles each week, and
- I can run every other day.
A week ago I ran (most of) a 5k. I had not actually ever expected to run again, but when I hit my old cross country weight I began running short distances in June, hoping to achieve a mile, and gradually built to a couple of miles. The nearest Park Run 5k had rolling hills, but I only walked about a half mile of the 3.1 miles. My time was five or six minutes slower than what I could manage twenty years ago. That’s probably good news, but I have begun training on hills—short distances. So far, so good. My long range goal is to run an entire 5k after my 70th birthday in October of next year. Slow is okay.
Right at the end of my 5k in Hillsboro last weekend. Yeah, I was tired!
I might lose another 4 pounds or settle on the weight I am now. I know how to eat better while including treats, including ice cream (rarely and a half-cup at a time instead of an entire pint) and pie and cake and popcorn with butter (again, not so often and not as much as I used to eat). I eat what I know is enough instead of until I feel full—since it takes a long time for the brain to catch up and signal “full” and eating lunch at school for nearly all my life taught me to eat too fast. I do not feel discouraged if my weight abruptly pops up a pound or two—salted popcorn will do that, but it’s temporary. Feeling hungry might actually mean I am only thirsty or bored—I can live with that for a few hours before bedtime. I get to eat sourdough waffles (or toast with peanut butter or homemade granola) for breakfast. And I am breaking my fast each morning, because while I might eat 11 almonds as a snack before my morning walk, I do not breakfast until after I get home, lunch (my biggest meal) is around noon, and dinner (usually salad or roasted veg) is around five. If I snack beyond that, it’s tea or iced coffee with milk, 1% fat.
The upshot? The trauma in our country and the world is completely beyond my comprehension or control, but I can behave mindfully in my own actions and choices. I feel physically better and I have regained healthy habits at a time in my life and because of covid where I felt the need to exercise such control. I am not in denial about my age, but am delighted at how much I can manage. (I nap.)
This morning I ran two miles on highway hills, more up than down since I ran up to the highway, to the top of the headland north, and then rolling hills past my marker, and back to walk down through the steep Hug Point parking lot. I found a machete in the ditch alongside the highway and carried it carefully all the way home. It needs cleaning and sharpening, but I am the person to do that.
Without meaning to brag (yet I know I’m bragging), the past year has proven a lot to me. I am proud of myself; I am both hopeful and grateful. I want to prove Samantha Bee wrong by maintaining this progress, by finding a healthy maintenance and maintaining as long as I can.
PEACEFUL DAY
We each have our favorite colors of sea glass. Gary almost never finds the dark orange “brown” glass. Cobalt blue (the piece above is more than 50mm across and 6mm thick) is cause for celebration.
Today I will bake rolls and roast green beans. My mother would have made lamb, but we are vegetarian and I have a casserole of mac&cheese already made and ready to go in the oven. I found fresh blueberries on our weekly grocery run, so there will be a pie. No ice cream, but blueberry pie. We will sit at table and remind ourselves of our good fortune. Continue reading
TEACHERS & other essentials
Nurses, doctors, firefighters, the EMTs who answer calls, ambulance drivers, therapists, technicians, and pharmacists.
A local hospital administrator must leave her infant son to ensure medical care is available for the rest of us.
Like other essential services, children need education and local teachers are still at work, striving to accomplish what they can without actually having students in front of them. It is a challenge. One teacher, working from home in her basement, commented, “As you can imagine, it is not best practices just to put your assignments online and think they will be able to do them.” She has always done so very much more than that. And every day.
A local trucker friend who delivers fuel is also working, often with people who do not think any of this is a big deal. He worries about his mother, in her 90s.
The nearest grocery is five miles from us and having trouble keeping supplies in stock. Their employees are gloved and masked, but they are still open.
Our favorite bakery in Tolovana delivers bread at their door.
No one wants to take cash, but we are not spending much either. We stay close to home and do not sleep well the night before we must go out. But there are invisible people still plugging way and keeping things moving, people who still go to work each day, people who log on to their computers and do the job, people who are old themselves but still taking care of older relatives, people who fill my yarn and book and CD orders, people who gather to sing virtually.
Thank you. Thank you every one.
NO BAD THINGS
I found a list on the Tor website of books in which nothing bad happens, not merely a good ending, but nothing bad before it gets there. Adult books too. It’s Tor so mostly fantasy/SF, but read the comments because the list grows . . .
ON THE OTHER HAND
“…she had warts.”
A local Portland station urges neighbors to check in on one another. A photo shows a group of men standing in the street, spaced well apart, but talking about how they are doing in isolation and making plans to monitor how the neighborhood is managing.
I won’t pretend this is a silver lining here, but a few realities are being faced and some things are getting done. Continue reading
DROWNED TREE
The drowned trees might be from 800 years ago (according to some) or from thousand of years ago. This is the one furthest from shore that appears only rarely. Well, to be precise, all of the drowned trees are generally buried under sand and rock. This one is buried again this week.
Last Wednesday I began winding a warp and today I am a few inches from completing the second shawl. I will work past dark to get this one done because I have already laid out the weft for the third shawl. This morning I wound off a skein of sock yarn. I will knit socks before beginning the next warp in a couple of weeks.
The last person I hugged other than my husband was Paul at the Twist sale on the 6th of March. That was a couple of weeks ago. By last Tuesday, I was not hugging anyone. I cancelled my Scrabble game. We took stock of supplies and are self-isolating. Gary was listening, just now, to Irish music of the sort that makes me cry even before I listen to the words. Continue reading
HUNGER
I have read Berkeley Wellness Letter for years. In their latest report they applaud the new Canadian dietary recommendations.
“Canada has done away with the dairy category altogether (instead including dairy as just one of many sources of “healthy protein foods”) in favor of reminding people that water is the best beverage overall. Its previous guide advised two to four servings of milk (or milk alternatives) a day, depending on one’s age.”
The USDA continues to emphasize meat and dairy in diet because “unlike Health Canada, whose sole mission is to improve the health of Canadians, the mission of the USDA is not only to safeguard the health of Americans but also to promote agriculture production (including meat and dairy foods)—which is a conflict of interest.”
Intense lobbying has created the plates Americans are encouraged to eat. Advertising supports the industry paying for it. Advertising and industry-biased research has fed us a pack of lies.
We have lost faith in dieting as a way to control or lose weight because the soda industry has devoted millions to convincing us, often through bogus research, that changing what we eat (and how much) will not work. Hello. What we eat matters. What we eat, how much, and when does impact our body weight. Exercise is critical for a healthy body, but what we feed ourselves matters most of all.
I share this in full knowledge that I eat badly, that I should lose weight, and that baking rugelach and cake is one reason I have gained weight over the past year. We have been vegetarian/pescatarian for decades, and there is little chance of our abandoning dairy any time soon (cheese!) but we hope for small stage changes toward more vegetables.
The colorful illustration above does not represent how my husband and I eat. It is entirely different from how my family ate when I was a child. In those days our plates were half brown (meat), a quarter each green or yellow or orange (peas, corn, carrots) and a quarter white (potatoes). In my childhood a salad meant chopped iceberg lettuce and Catalina dressing (sweet). Dessert was something large, sugary, and baked, cut into four pieces. Sweet drinks vied with whole milk (or powdered milk in lean times). It was a diet driven by culture and industrial interests, not health. Our meals were all too valid and sweet.
“Eat food, not too much, mostly vegetables.”
The very concept of meals has disappeared in our country. We eat all day, though recent research strongly suggests that we are meant to feel a bit hungry each day. Breakfast is intended to break a fast of at least 12 hours. We are meant to feel and to be empty. People all over the world literally starve, but Americans are deeply afraid to feel hungry and so we snack and nibble and “graze” all the hours we are awake. We encourage our children to develop lifelong habits that will impact their health and shorten their lives.
The way we eat is not healthy. I should have seen this coming when the sleep surveys I have been completing online began asking me not only about hours of sleep, sound, lighting, and how quickly I got out of bed in the morning, but also how many nights I went to bed a bit hungry. Never, I responded. But then I wondered and sure enough the research began to come out.
Eat within a 10-12 hour window, between 7am and 7pm, for example. Or between 7am and 5pm. Fill our plates with vegetables. A little grain, a little protein. (Protein is actually easy to come by. Almost everything we consume contains protein.) One large meal, ideally earlier in the day. One very light meal, ideally the last of the day. (Or first like the French, back when we envied how they were all so slender.) Give your gut a rest overnight. Feel genuinely hungry for a few hours. No, you are not “starving” when you feel a bit hungry. Each day I hope to experience just a little “hunger” because my body needs a rest from eating.
Berkeley Wellness Letter also warns that by midcentury “the world will have nearly 10 billion people. One looming challenge will be how to feed them healthfully and without wreaking even more havoc on the environment. Our current eating habits, especially in wealthy Western countries, are responsible for creating an excess of greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change, largely due to our penchant for red meat and other animal foods. What’s more, the typical Western diet plays a major role in obesity and other chronic health problems; meanwhile, millions of people elsewhere are undernourished.”
I need a break from feeling full.
I need a different fullness: Full of hope. Full of passion. Full of intent and wonder and admiration and love. I am hungry for conversation and compassion and kindness. I am hungry for productivity and purpose.
on another note: Today is Zora Neale Hurston’s birthday.
&PRIDE Press 