Wready To Wrimo

I am Wready to Wrimo!

I have a murder (both method and motive), a person living under an assumed identity, a love story, a breakup, a child with questionable paternity, and a lot of other exciting stuff.

I have my yWriter file set up with chapters and scenes ready to write, as well as notes and character bios created.

I have my NaNoWriMo 2009 t-shirt, my NaNoWriMo mugs, and my hat that says, “Oh, this is SO going into my next novel.”

I have lots of Dunkin Donuts coffee (the kind you make at home), and my this-year’s-writing-snack (I’m having Johnsonville Beddar with Cheddar this year (gluten free – SS checked them out online the other night when I was in the grocery store and we were on the phone).

I’m inspired, I’m excited, I’m as prepared as I’m going to be, and I’ll be well-rested after the nap I’m going to take tonight, waking up at about 11:30 to make coffee and get prepared to start writing at midnight.  (I like to get my first couple hours in right after midnight.  Just a fun tradition, especially when November 1st falls on a weekend.)

When I was looking for a file on the computer earlier, I came across some NaNo-related graphics I made in 2005 and 2006 for my old diary.

The web site I used for my old diary was set up so users could make banner ads and run them on the user’s section of the site so that other users could click them and read each other’s diaries.  I made some ads for my NaNoWriMo entries, including some that I ran in the days leading up to the start of NaNo.

P.S. I’m adding NaNoWriMo to my Bliss List.

Counting down . . .

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Rambling Thoughts About Climbing Back On The IF Wagon

I’m working back toward the anti-inflammation diet again.  I’d gotten away from it, after the two or three weeks or so in June and July that I did really well (I don’t actually remember when I let it go by the wayside; I just stopped writing about it at some point, just as I did in January when I was trying to lose weight).  Money was an issue the week I gave up, and I couldn’t afford the right foods to continue properly.  By that time, though, I’d already begun the process of letting go of it gradually, first eating some of the inflammatory foods I’d been craving, justifying it to myself by thinking the anti-inflammatory foods I was still eating would make up for it.  I knew about that tendency in myself, to justify, yet the Inner Enabler (I don’t know if that’s an actual psychological term or not, but it seems to fit) can effectively wipe that knowledge from accessible memory and make it seem like it makes sense in the moment.

“I’ll just have one.”

“I’ll just have a few.”

“Well, half the package is already gone.  I’ll just finish it so I won’t have any more left to tempt me and I’ll start again tomorrow.”

“It could be worse.  I could have eaten (fill in the blank with something worse).”

My sister and I once developed an entire diet plan called the It Could Be Worse Diet.  It works like this: Whatever you want to eat, just think of something worse that you could be eating but aren’t.  (“I want a big bowl of ice cream, but I won’t eat the whole container!”, “I want a second donut, but it could be worse; I could eat the whole dozen.”  ”This burger and fries has to be better than eating an entire pizza.”)  Bingo.  Your Inner Enabler is happy, you get your comfort food, and all feels right with the world.  Granted, you won’t lose much weight,  but it kept us amused for a while.

My food addiction is making it so difficult to eat the way I know I need to.  The other day, while walking through the grocery store and picking out healthy items, I fought tears, facing that I would be giving up my comfort foods again.  It felt something like walking a tight rope without a net, a comparison I have made to the fighting of fears in a few areas of my life.

In the last month or two, I’ve been feeling the effects of the inflammation growing steadily worse again.  The knees, the hip, the back pain (especially after sleeping for any length of time over about five hours).  Then, last week, my left shoulder started to hurt again and got worse every day, and finally my jaw started hurting again by about Thursday.  I was afraid the stabbing headache pains would be next, so that was why I went to the store and bought a supply of some of the easier anti-inflammatory foods to incorporate back into my diet: tuna, sardines, sweet potatoes, cantaloupe, salad greens, avocado, V-8 juice, baby carrots.  I still had frozen strawberries, which, along with cantaloupe, I hadn’t actually stopped eating regularly since doing this in June and July.  I still have some frozen Brussels sprouts and some frozen spinach.  I’ll pick up almonds the next time I go to the store, and olive oil for cooking.  Maybe a jar of olives.  According to the book I have, one jumbo green olive is worth 8 IF (Inflammation Factor) points.  Two tablespoons of chopped raw onion is worth 52.  A quarter cup chopped red bell pepper is 45.  So, adding those things (and counting out maybe five jumbo olives) to a salad would add 137 points to a salad eaten with dinner, and will add a whole lot of flavor, as well.  If I include raw kale in the salad, that can really boost the IF ratings even more.  (A quarter cup is worth 128 points, according to nutritiondata.com [the book doesn't list raw kale, only cooked].)

I’ve been in the habit of looking up foods either on the Nutrition Data web site or in the book when certain ones are listed in one place but not the other.  Sometimes I look things up in both places, and sometimes I can’t find specific listings anywhere.  There are a few things I am finding extremely difficult and frustrating.  One is when the web site and the book contradict one another.  Another is when I can’t find something anywhere.  And yet another is not knowing how to figure out packaged foods or gluten-free foods that aren’t on either list or show the IF Rating as N/A on the web site.  So I do the best I can and hope I’m right, and that if I’m wrong, I’ve done well enough with the rest of my day to make up for it.  I’ll just continue to hope that the concept of IF Ratings catches on and becomes something that more people will want to pay attention to, and that that may mean more access to information about more foods in the future.

I think the most astounding thing I noticed last time I did this was that I was suddenly able to sleep through an entire night without waking up with back pain.  For years, I felt I had a choice: either get enough sleep to function on all cylinders or be able to stand upright and walk in the morning.  I’d had no idea that it was any longer an option, at my weight and age and without buying a new bed, to have both.  But eating anti-inflammatorily (I still like that phrase, even if I did make it up) made it possible.  And, of course, it went back to the way it was before, when I stopped.  Because a decent night’s sleep is imperative for so many things, including ADD, fibromyalgia, and depression, and because allowing those things to be any more out of control than they already are (especially the ADD) could very well cost me my job, I’ve come to the conclusion that avoiding inflammatory foods is something I’m going to have to do.  (I’ve decided to talk with my GP about trying ADD medication when I see him in October, but even if I  find a medication I like and it helps a lot, proper sleep is still vital.)

I read an article yesterday that said:

The fatty tissues of the body secrete hormones that regulate the immune system and inflammation, but in the case of an overweight individual this can become out of control. Three of the hormones that play a role in metabolism are leptin, resistin and adiponectin.

• Leptin is involved in appetite control.
• Resistin is a hormone that increases insulin resistance.
• Adiponectin lowers the blood sugar by making your body more insulin sensitive.

The fact that it is the fatty tissue that produces these hormones makes the fat self regulating, as the hormones should act to bring the increased fat under control. Bodies with more fat will produce more leptin bringing the appetite under control. However in cases where the body is inflamed there is often a problem with leptin resistance, and the self regulation of fat does not occur. Leptin resistance is where to body stops responding to the appetite controlling effects of the hormone.

In addition to these metabolism regulating hormones your fatty tissue also produces chemicals that cause inflammation and this can make the problem of leptin resistance worse. This is why obesity can cause an increase of these inflammatory chemicals which in turn inhibit the correct balancing function of the weight controlling hormones. This results in a vicious circle of weight gain causing inflammation which inhibits hormone function thereby causing further weight gain.

And this drives home the point that I not only need to avoid inflammatory foods; I need to lose weight as well.  I suppose that saying “I’m not doing this to lose weight, but to feel better, and the fact that I’ll end up losing weight anyway is just a bonus” is becoming less effective at distracting my fears.  Fooling myself into thinking I can skirt around the Inner Enabler unnoticed isn’t going to work anymore, either.

I suppose it’s wake-up time.

–

The Daily Meme – Wednesday Media Mix

I stumbled on this site this morning, and it looks like it could be fun.  On the Wednesday list is the Wednesday Media Mix at My Digital Ghost, and I decided to do today’s.

Play along! Either answer in the comments or post a link to your blog entry.

Today’s theme is comfort.

[Listen] What is the most comforting album that you have?

[Watch] Which movie(s) gives you the best kind of warm fuzzies inside?

[Read] Which books have given you a sense of comfort while reading them? (If you want, explain why.)

Here goes:

[Listen] What is the most comforting album that you have?

It’s probably Dan Fogelberg and Tim Weisberg’s “Twin Sons of Different Mothers”.  It’s from 1978.  I used to listen to it a lot in the ’80’s.  My then-brother-in-law used to refer to it as one of his Sunday morning albums, and it really is perfect for weekends at home, puttering or writing or cleaning house, or even just relaxing and drinking morning coffee.  I recently bought a CD copy since I no longer have a turntable and my older copy is on vinyl.

[Watch] Which movie(s) gives you the best kind of warm fuzzies inside?

That would be The Breakfast Club.  I have always been drawn to stories that bring in a group of people with different personalities or backgrounds and show what draws them together, sometimes in otherwise unlikely ways.  I’m not sure if it’s the story line of The Breakfast Club that gives me warm fuzzies or if it’s just the number of times I have seen it and the comfortable and timeless familiarity of it.

But then, there is also Sleepless in Seattle . . .

[Read] Which books have given you a sense of comfort while reading them? (If you want, explain why.)

This one is a little harder . . . and again, I’m going back almost 25 years.  The book actually came out 33 years ago, in 1976, but I read it in the mid-’80’s.  It’s Kinflicks, by Lisa Alther, and it was life-changing for me at the time, in that it helped me to recognize some aspects of myself I’d not understood before.  I went on to read it several times, although it has been years since my last reading, and I still have my original copy, now tattered and yellowed, on my bookshelf.  I have had so much trouble with reading and retention in the last several years, from the ADD, I suppose.  Reading in and of itself used to be such a comforting experience, and I miss being able to sit and become absorbed in a story for hours, losing total track of time in the real world.  It’s been so long since I have been able to do that, and these days it’s so hard to finish a book at all.  I’ve been seriously considering talking to my doctor about trying some ADD medication, for work, mainly.  But if I could regain that ability to read the way I used to . . .  that would be an amazingly wonderful bonus.  And maybe I’d even read Kinflicks again, just for old-time’s sake.

Over-40 Eyesight

Last weekend, my friend RB and I met up at a bookstore.  We looked at several books (even bought some from the clearance bins), and sat in the coffee shop and chatted.  

I discovered that jalapeno potato chips and mocha latte are really good together, but I digress.

When we went up front to check out, RB looked at the rack of bookmarks and said she used to have a bookmark that was a thin, plastic, rectangular magnifying “glass”.  We both have Over-40 Eyesight, so I was able to appreciate how helpful that would be.  She said she’d lost it and was hoping to find another one.  The closest thing she was able to find was a two-pack of credit-card sized plastic magnifiers.  She took it from the display and looked for a price, but it was printed so small, she had to take another package from the display and use another magnifier to read the price of the magnifiers.

Did I mention before that I love irony?

We decided to split the cost and share the two-pack.

When she said that she suspected that her other one was somewhere in her car, and then pointed out that it might be futile to try to look for something flat and see-through, in a car, with Over-40 Eyesight, I mentioned that if it’s on the floor, she might just look for pieces of carpet lint that appear to be unnaturally large.

Shopping Lists

My therapist, when I asked her to talk about some ADD-coping strategies a month ago, suggested, among other things, that I keep a shopping list.  Not just to make one from memory, right before I go to the store, but to keep one that I add onto whenever I realize there is something else I need.  (This was after I talked about having forgotten to buy laundry detergent over and over, when I’d gone to the store serveral times for other things.  Did you know that shampoo works pretty well in a pinch, for washing clothes?)

Anyway, I have a little notebook that I carry in my purse, and I started to use it as a running shopping list, and it has begun to double as a small to-do list as well, for the more immediate to-do items, like errands to run or phone calls to make during my lunch break.  It’s serving two purposes, and that’s nice.  It’s also a better solution than having little scraps of paper in my purse, that I can’t find when I need them.

My friend RB and I saw a very amusing book about shopping lists last weekend when we went to the bookstore.  I’m so funny about other people seeing my shopping lists, whether because of my embarrssment about my hard-to-read writing or the way I may abbreviate things or put question marks next to an item that I may not need all that badly unless it happens to be on sale or enough other items are on sale to “make it fit” into the budget.  But the shopping lists in this book are so funny (be sure to click on the “Look Inside” link to see some of them) that mine now seem boring enough that I don’t have to care who sees them.

The thing is, though, for me, other than occasionally forgetting to buy something repeatedly (like the laundry soap), on my better days (and if I need only a handful of items), I’m usually pretty able to remember what I need.  On my bad days, I may not even be able to construct a list at all if I haven’t been slowly adding to it for days, let alone navigate the grocery store or decide what to buy without a list.  But the good days . . . they’re fun.  They’re fun because I like to use creative ways to remember what I need to buy, such as arranging the items in my mind so that I know them based on the first letter of each word (“I need three B’s, two L’s, and an H”), or I may arrange them so that there is a silly rhyme scheme (“Soap, shampoo, and wine, and tomatoes-on-the-vine”).  Sometimes the syllable-pattern reminds me of a song, as it did the other day, even if it happens to be a song I’d never paid all that much attention to.  I was walking toward the store and reached for my purse to get the list out, and I thought to myself, “No, wait.  The syllable-pattern reminded me of ‘Lawyers, Guns, and Money‘.”

And it came to me quickly: Toothpaste, cheese, and butter.

I could write a Weird Al song, if only I’d needed liver, buns, and honey.

People tell me all the time that my mind works very differently from most others.  I guess they’re right.

“How Can You Say This Differently?”

I’m reading Eats, Shoots, & Leaves, and I was talking with Sister about it.  Although the book is specifically about punctuation, we got to talking about grammar and sentence structure as well, and wondering why there are so many people close to our ages who went to school in the same state we did, who managed to come away with very little understanding of how to write a sentence.  (I am very aware, now, that by mentioning my opinion that I have decent grammar and punctuation skills compared to many others, I’m putting a magnifying glass on any mistakes I make . . . *cringe*.)

I pointed out, to Sister, that we went to school in other states before moving here, and that those other schools were quite advanced compared to the education system here at that time (I don’t know how it compares to the rest of the country now).  I pointed out that I was about halfway through the second grade when we moved here, and that I was in the seventh grade before there was any material to speak of that really felt “new” to me.  Then I added that we also had the benefit of our mother’s teaching as kids.  She read with us, made up learning games, and she shared her love of writing with us.  She uses proper grammar when she speaks, especially with children, so she was a good example to us while we were growing up (although I do use improper grammer way more often than she ever does, but the good part is I realize what is wrong about it).

Well, having that discussion with Sister reminded me of a conversation with my therapist several months back.  I’d said something, referring to “my stupider moments”, without realizing I’d used the word “stupider” until my therapist repeated it back to me and asked how I could have said that differently.  She was looking for an answer that was not so judgmental of myself, but in the second or two that it took for me to realize what she really meant, I almost said, “Oh.  Yeah.  ’More stupid’.”

I still laugh about that.

An ADDitional Piece of The Puzzle

So, I emailed my therapist last week about something (not related to the topic of this post), and I mentioned that I have so much trouble switching my focus from one thing to another.  If I’m on top of things at work and have a productive day, then when I get home I can’t seem to switch gears and take care of the things I need to do in my personal life because my head is still at work.  If I get involved in working on a novel or a web site or some other project at home, then when I go to work, I can’t seem to stop thinking about that project and focus on my work.

My therapist commented that difficulty transitioning is a strong indicator of adult ADD.  I’d actually wondered, four or five years ago, if I might have adult ADD, but I quickly discounted the idea because (1) I’ve never been hyperactive a day in my life . . . or really, anything that even resembles any usage of the word “active”, and (2) I’m sometimes very able to  focus, even to an extreme.  I have a small web design business and have a half-dozen or so web sites that I maintain and I often build new ones for personal use, and I’ve been known to work on a web site for 14 hours straight, focusing on it to the exclusion of everything else except the occasional need to pee or eat or drink water or coffee.

As it turns out, hyperfocus is a symptom, and can be a good thing, when channelled properly.  I guess I just need to learn how not to forget to take care of other things that are important.

I found this ADD web page, and the majority of what it says is so on-the-mark.  My therapist offered to do a formal assessment, or not, as I chose.  I wavered a little, thought about it, and then finally decided to just do it and find out.  What could it hurt to find out?  The results were pretty clear.

And this explains so much.

Now I am realizing that finishing NaNoWriMo felt like such a big deal to me for very good reason.  All the introspection, all the trying to figure out the psychological reason(s) for my apparent fear of success, and coming up with nothing that really rang a bell, other than “If I succeed, people will expect me to keep succeeding, and I’m not confident I can do that” . . . it makes a lot more sense now.

The never finishing anything (one of my friends pointed that out to me just recently, that in the three years since she’s known me, I have begun several projects, novels, etc., and she never heard me ever say I’d finished any of them, and I’ve been this way for years and years), the hyperfocusing on one thing while forgetting to do other very important things, the stupid mistakes at work that would (and understandably should) have gotten me fired a long time ago if my boss hadn’t given me so many chances to redeem myself, the way I so often “zone out” in conversations (that used to drive one of my exes batshit – I don’t mean to do it), the inability to get to work on time more than about six times a year . . . so many things make more sense now.

I hadn’t been aware there was still another piece of the puzzle that I didn’t have.  I’d been blaming all my focus and concentration problems on the different health issues I have that can all come with those symptoms.  That, and I did believe that underneath it all I must just be a lazy loser.  I thought this was as good as I was going to get, and that I would just have to accept it.

In spite of making the decision to go back to school, I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to do it.  I knew enough to try and prioritize what I’ll need to do before I can start, like getting into a habit of eating healthy and losing some weight, so I can be a bit less sleepy all the time and have more stamina, as well as being in the habit of planning ahead with meals so I won’t be left to eat from vending machines at school (which would be difficult because of the gluten and also wouldn’t help in my fight against fatigue or my weight loss attempts).  Knowing about the ADD, though, is a good thing, because now I can finally let go of that “I’m-a-loser” mantra and start forgiving myself and working toward solutions.

My therapist loaned me her copy of Driven to Distraction and I started reading it last night.  I’ve already found some information in it that I think will be very helpful.  I did have to laugh, though, at the idea of reading a book about how to deal with ADD when reading retention and reading the same paragraph over and over are symptoms of ADD.  But the authors both have ADD, so I’m figuring if they could manage to write it, I can manage to read it.  And I do read a lot.  It’s just been taking me longer to read something in the last several years than it used to.  I’d been wondering why I was having so much trouble following a novel anymore.  I can never guess whodunnit anymore because I confuse and forget little details about certain characters and mix them up.

I’m even thinking the reason I tend to eat the same thing for dinner most nights is possibly ADD-related, since I have so much trouble planning ahead and figuring out all the steps involved in making something different each night.  I’m also even more pleased, now, with my decision to just make that quirk work for me and go ahead and eat mostly the same things on my diet as well.  And it’s still working, so far.

Leaving you with some interesting myths from the web site I linked to in the fourth paragraph:

Adult ADD Myths: Fact or Fiction

MYTH: ADD is just a lack of willpower. Persons with ADD focus well on things that interest them; they could focus on any other tasks if they really wanted to.

FACT: ADD looks very much like a willpower problem, but it isn’t. It’s essentially a chemical problem in the management systems of the brain.

MYTH: Everybody has the symptoms of ADD, and anyone with adequate intelligence can overcome these difficulties.

FACT: ADD affects persons of all levels of intelligence. And although everyone sometimes has symptoms of ADD, only those with chronic impairments from these symptoms warrant an ADD diagnosis.

MYTH: Someone can’t have ADD and also have depression, anxiety, or other psychiatric problems.

FACT: A person with ADD is six times more likely to have another psychiatric or learning disorder than most other people. ADD usually overlaps with other disorders.

MYTH: ADD doesn’t really cause much damage to a person’s life.

FACT: Untreated or inadequately treated ADD syndrome often severely impairs learning, family life, education, work life, social interactions, and driving safely.

MYTH: Unless you have been diagnosed with ADD as a child, you can’t have it as an adult.

FACT: Many adults have struggled all their lives with unrecognized ADD impairments. They haven’t received help because they assumed that their chronic difficulties, like depression or anxiety, were caused by other impairments that did not respond to the usual treatments.

Combining Diet Plans

I’m liking this whole concept of lowering caloric intake and then seeing corresponding weight loss.  I love it when things work they way they’re supposed to.

Because “150 pounds to lose” is a huge goal to look at head-on, I decided to break it into five 30-pound goals.  I’m 14% of the way to my first goal.

Note: The rest of this entry carries a severe boredom warning, unless you are here specifically because you are interested either in hearing about my diet or learning about the Inflammation Factor in foods. 

The diet I am following is a modified blend of more than one diet plan.

Back in, oh, I think it was 2005, I ordered a diet plan that was advertised on TV.  It’s one where you answer a bunch of questions to find out which body type you are and then follow the plan for that body type.  I forget what they call my body type, but my type has the slowest metabolism of all the types in their results.  The diet is one where you eat five or six small meals each day.  It’s sometimes hard to remember to stop and eat every few hours, but I’m getting the hang of it.

When I tried this diet in 2005, I had more trouble sticking to it, which is why I have modified it a little bit.  As the diet is written, it is very strict and does not include any dairy products, nuts, bread, packaged foods . . . it’s pretty much lean meats and fish, vegetables, fruits, and carbs like potatoes or rice or sweet potatoes.  (That is for the first six weeks, to improve the metabolism, and then it’s ok to slowly add extra items, I think it said – I didn’t stick to it for six full weeks the first time.)  

The restrictiveness of the diet was a big part of what helped to confirm my suspicions about my gluten intolerance, however, when I tried it in ‘05.  I didn’t start the gluten free diet until ‘07, but having done Atkins in ‘04 and then this diet in ‘05, I really noticed a difference when I cut out bread.  In fact, I remember noticing how much better I felt when I started the Atkins diet, and then the moment I discovered low-carb bread, I started to feel bad again.

But I digress.

The proteins, vegetables, fruits, and carbs are broken down into categories on this diet, and the plan allows for x-amount from one category or a different amount from another category, depending on the calories, fats, and sugars.  The snacks are always a protein and a fruit and the meals (lunch and dinner) are a protein, a vegetable, and a carb.  Breakfast is usually a protein and a carb, but I’ve also seen an example that lists a protein and half a grapefruit, which is the only time I’ve seen a fruit with a meal.  I’ve been eating gluten-free oatmeal and hard boiled eggs for breakfast.  That’s easy to do and I like it.

The modifications I made were to add cottage cheese and almonds to the foods I eat, as well as apples, even though they are in the category of fruits that I shouldn’t be eating until after the first six weeks.  I’m in this for the long haul, and so I’m figuring that as long as it’s working and I’m seeing results, I’m doing ok, and by allowing a few more choices, I’m making it easier on myself.

So anyway, the idea behind a small serving of protein with every meal and snack, as well as the five or six small meals aspect, is to keep blood sugar levels balanced through the day, avoiding big spikes and dips.  That must also be the reason that fruits are at snack times and (other) carbs and vegetables are at mealtimes, to keep the carbs/sugars balanced.

The other diet plan I’m working into the mix has to do with the Inflammation Factor.  I found the NutritionData web site awhile back and have used it off and on to check calories, carb counts, etc.  They also include an Inflammation Factor rating for each item, and I clicked on their “What’s This?” link to find out more.  This is what it says:

The IF (Inflammation Factor) Rating™ estimates the inflammatory or anti-inflammatory potential of individual foods or combinations of foods by calculating the net effect of different nutritional factors, such as fatty acids, antioxidants, and glycemic impact.

How to interpret the values: Foods with positive IF Ratings are considered anti-inflammatory, and those with negative IF Ratings are considered inflammatory. The higher the number, the stronger the effect.

The goal is to balance negative foods with positive foods so that the combined rating for all foods eaten in a single day is positive. 

I followed the “Read More About the IF Rating” link and ordered the book by Monica Reinagel.  I received the book and have skimmed it, but so far haven’t read all of it yet.  I understand the basic gist of combining foods so that the total IF rating for the meal (and for the day) is positive, though, and I have been combining my choices according to that.

For example:

2 oz. of pan-fried chicken breast meat = -16
2 oz. canned pink salmon =  +280 (I make patties out of it with flax seed and fry them in olive oil.  Flax seed and olive oil should raise the IF rating even more.)
1/2 c. baked sweet potato =  +186
1/2 c. instant mashed potatoes = -57.5 (This is when prepared with milk, which I don’t use, so my number would probably be slightly better.) 

I eat the chicken with the sweet potato and the salmon with the mashed potatoes so that both meals average out with positive numbers (I didn’t list the vegetables here because the ones I eat all have positive ratings anyway).  Same with snacks.  Four oz. of cottage cheese is -25, four oz. of unsweetened applesauce is -5.5, 1/4 cup of cubed cantaloupe is +16.75 and 1 oz. of salted, dry roasted almonds is +56.  I’m eating the cottage cheese with the cantaloupe and the applesauce with the almonds.  The cottage cheese / cantaloupe combination is still in the negative, but that will be balanced out with the rest of the day’s numbers.

I just did a quick calculation, and on a typical day, I should wind up with about a 195.  The NutritionData web site says a typical target is 50 per day or higher.

The thing that keeps this from being too overwhelmingly complicated for me is that I’m capitalizing on one of my weirder quirks rather than trying to force myself to endure too much change too fast: I’m the epitome of “creature of habit”.  

Before I was gluten free (I cringe when I admit this), I would eat the same meal from McDonalds for lunch and dinner every day and not get tired of it.  I went gluten free and then started making melt sandwiches with gluten free bread every single night for dinner, and often for lunch on the weekends.  I know.  Crazy, huh?  I suppose that means I’m lazy and unimaginative in the kitchen, though I can cook, if I want to.  I just don’t seem to do the whole meal-planning thing very well.  Part of the problem has been money – it’s cheaper and less complicated to make sandwiches, despite the high cost of gluten free bread.  And part of the problem has been my fluctuating moods and memory / focus levels.  Sometimes it’s just too much to plan that far ahead.  That has been a problem when I’ve tried to diet in the past.  I’d be going along fine and then hit a bit of an icy patch with depression or fatigue and I’d be leaving for work with no lunch prepared and no real plan for what to do about it, and I’d wind up just eating whatever, and blowing the diet.

So instead of beating myself up and trying to force change in two major areas at once (the “creature of habit” thing and my food addictions), I decided to taylor the diet to my established habits.  Since I like for dinner to be something I can make very quickly with little fuss and since I am capable of eating the same thing every night without going nuts, I picked out an easy meal I can make every night that can become as much of a habit as my melt sandwiches did (salmon patties, instant mashed potatoes, and green beans).

 I’ve been eating the same thing every day for breakfast, too.  I eat breakfast at work because I take amino acids in the morning that require not eating any proteins within an hour or so, so every night, I measure my oatmeal into a plastic bowl with a lid and add Splenda and cinnamon for the next morning, and I keep hard boiled eggs in the fridge.  At work, I add water to the oatmeal and microwave it.

I can cook lunch meals ahead, once a week, and freeze them to take to work, and I can cook pretty much the same three or four meals to keep it easy and uncomplicated, and on the occasion that I feel especially creative I can change it up with something different.  During the next few weeks, I’m going to be working on cooking ahead enough so that I have lunches for about three weeks, of about three different meals, and then each week I can cook a week’s worth of one of the meals and keep rotating them so I don’t eat the same lunch every day, for some variety.

There.  I am putting my quirky weirdnesses to good use.  At least, some of them.

Coming soon: a post about my exercise plans.

Novel Journals

I’m a Sue Grafton fan.  I got started reading the Alphabet Series books several years after she began publishing them, but one benefit to that is that I’ve gotten to read them in order, one after the other (well, except that I read “N is For Noose” first and then went back and started with “A is For Alibi”), without having to wait for the next one to come out before reading it.

I’d been to her web site before, but never noticed until recently that she has a section called Journal Notes, where she shares the journals she kept while planning “G”, “H”, “J”, “K”, and “L”.  I love this.  I’ve had various text files with notes about the series I’m writing (I don’t use traditional outlines.  I don’t know if Sue Grafton does or not, but my notes are what I do in place of an actual outline), and some other text files with snippets and pieces of ideas for other projects (sometimes as little as a part of a line that I want to use somewhere, someday), but I’ve been unhappy with the way I’ve been keeping my notes when it came to finding a specific idea or thought later.

Reading some of Sue Grafton’s journals has been so exciting for me, for more than one reason.  Obviously, I am eager to learn from seasoned professionals.  Every author, I’m sure, has his or her own ways of keeping track of information, but the journaling idea really appeals to me.  Another reason I have loved reading them is that a lot of her “thinking on paper” sounds similar to the way I write most of my notes when I’m planning.  Lots of questions.  ”Maybe this?” or “Maybe that?”  Some partially thought-out ideas, “but still need to decide such-and-such”.  And a third reason I have found this so fun is that I was reading the journals after having read the finished books, and some that came after, so I was able to recognize which ideas she used, what she changed, and even what she wound up using in a different book.  (I’m guessing that may be why she hasn’t published her journal notes after “L”; there may be notes in some of the journals that came later that she hasn’t used yet.)

I have so often been tempted to write entries in my old online diary about some of the brainstorming sessions Sister and I have.  It would, however, be a bad idea to post ideas for as-yet unwritten novels on the Internet for anybody to read.  But I have started a journal (and a database, also, to keep track of timeline information and specific character details).  I think my journal will probably cover the planning for the whole series, rather than starting a new one for each book, but that isn’t written in stone yet.

A few weeks ago, Sister and I did some great brainstorming.  I had been thinking of deciding on a specified number of books to be in the series, and we had been discussing three different options as to how to title them.  All three ideas had their own merits, but the one I kept leaning toward (and eventually decided on) worked best with a finite number of books.  As soon as I decided on the number of books (six), I knew the title for the last one.  I like for the titles (at least in this series; not necessarily in everything I write) to fit the story in more than one way.  While Sister and I were talking, I brought up a title I’d like to use for book three, four, or five, and as soon as I said, “The reader will probably start out thinking the title means (one thing), but as the story unfolds, it will be obvious it means (something else),” Sister said, “Oh, how about if the story is about . . . ”  I immediately added some of my own thoughts and we went back and forth for awhile, until we had it all worked out.  Finally, I said, “And so-and-so can live in the house that (the third book) centers around!”  (A part of the initial idea for that story wound up being used, in a somewhat changed form, for book two, so this new idea replaced that and fit quite nicely into the rest of the already-established framework for book three.)  On and on we went, until we had all six titles, timelines, and basic plots.  This is so exciting. I listed the titles and basic story ideas in a text file, but haven’t added them to my journal yet.  I will do that soon, as well as some more brainstorming on book two, which I will be starting on November 1st.

I love something else about Sue Grafton’s web site, as well: She gives you a glimpse into her real life.  She has photos, including some of her office, her husband, her cats, and her assistant.

Someday, maybe I’ll publish excerpts from my novel journal(s) on my writer web site, and some other as-yet unpublished author will read them and find comfort and inspiration in my having revealed my half-conceived ideas and questions during the process that led to the finished books.  And maybe that author will be curious to see my office, my family (including Sister, who has already offered to work as my assistant and is already the world’s greatest plotting buddy), and my cat.  Plus the extra stuff I’ll be adding, to make my site unique.

Sigh.  That would be awesome.