Pomegranetes in My Lunchbox

The red plaid lunch box was the ubuiquitous accessory for little girls in the mid to late 1950's. Mine went with me to school in Tropic Utah most days. Tropic is a tiny town in the valley below Bryce Canyon Utah, one of a triad. The others were Henryville and Cannonville. My dad was ranger at Bryce, and a school bus took us between the park and the school via a dirt road that traversed a perilous feeling switchback road down the cliff face of our high plateau into the warmer (tropic) valley below.
Normally the lunchbox held a waxed paper wrapped sandwich of some sort, bolognae, tuna or peanut butter on Wonder bread, some Lays Potato chips, a home-made cookie, and healthy extras like carrot sticks or an apple. A nickel taped to the lid was for a carton of milk that tasted of wax and cardboard when drunk from the folded out spout. Sometimes though, my red plaid lunch box went home with more exotic contents than it came with.

Once a week at a certain time of the year those of us who could talk our parents into letting us have an extra nickel could go to the back door of the kitchen during lunch recess for an extra treat. We would watch for the produce delilvery truck to arrive and race back with our nickels to buy pomegranetes. They were a nickel each, so we would all come away with one of the heavy round leathery skinned fruits.

The fun then was getting them open, since none of us were allowed to carry pocket knives. The trick was to throw the fruit repeatedly on the sidewalk in front of the school until they cracked open. Then we could pry the tart-sweet ruby seeds out in clumps and devour them. When the bell rang to end lunch recess, we trooped in with our mouths and hands stained red, carrying what was left of our juicy treasures-usually about half the fruit. These would be secreted in our lunch boxes and go home with us to be finished after school or brought the next day in our lunches.

I can still feel the delight of sitting cross-legged on the grass with the sun warming my hair giggling with my friends while we burst the juicy seeds between our teeth, and the pleasure of saving away the remainder, like a ruby trove in my plaid lunch box.

Dieting with Harry is no fair

So hubby got on board with the eating plan last week, and there's an upside and a downside to that. First the upside-When we're on the same page with what we're eating there's a lot less sabotage-from him or from myself. From him because I'm not juggling what he wants to eat with what I want to eat and getting sidetracked eating with him. From me because if he knows what we're eating and not eating, it's hard to eat off the plan when we're eating together. Our recent four day weekend away did way less damage to either of us because we were discussing and making food choices with the eating plan as a guideline.

The downside-It takes awareness and effort not to get discouraged losing weight along with Harry. He's one of those guys that carrys a lot of muscle weight along with the optional weight, so I have to keep in mind the adage that he will lose twice as much twice as fast on twice the food and not let that discourage me.

You don't believe me? Here's what I mean. I'd been on the new eating plan two and a half weeks by the time he'd been on it two and a half days. At that point I'd lost two and a half pounds. He had lost three. Then we go away for four days, with a plan to stick to the diet two meals of three and have a little slack on the third meal, with one splurge meal on Valentine's day. Our goal was to come out of the weekend at least at the same weight we went into it.

So, Tuesday evening, after our first day back at home, we checked in with each other. Harry was despondent. 'How was your weight this morning?" I asked him. 'Higher than it should have been.' he groused. 'Wow. How bad was it?' I sympathized. 'I was up a pound.' 'oh.' 'How about you?' he asked. 'Um. I was up three pounds.' 'Good lord...'his eyes widened. Like I said. Twice as much, twice as fast, or more...

The better news postscript is that at least two of my three pounds was water weight from excess salt and a long car ride and was all gone this morning. I'm afraid to check in with him, he'll most likely be down three pounds today...

Day What?

Tonight's dinner, ready to stuff the veggies, avocado and a pan toasted Portobello GardenBurger in the pita halves...It was good!

Time for an update on my eating thing-I'm not going to call it a diet-no, I haven't quit, just having to reassess my over-optimistic plan to give a day-by-day account. Besides, there's nothing more boring than reading about every radish and push-up of someone else's eating and exercise plan.

I did well on the four day jump start last week, not fanatic about it, but good enough to come down a pound and a half. Then I just did my own thing over the weekend, but made choices with the idea of not totally sabotaging my good week. Such as, a turkey and veggie on ciabatta instead of the burger and onion rings I'd have treated myself with ordinarily-Yeah! Then no dinner while I wrangled four grand kids (6 mos. to age 5) for the evening while their mom and dad had a much needed date night. Added to over four hours walking around the zoo and some reasonable portioning on Sunday, I was elated to find myself down another half pound Monday morning-better than I expected!

I didn't go in to work this week-I'm on call, and wasn't needed, so I had time to finish working out menus and got to the store for what I needed for the next step after the jump start. I watched portions and ate lots of veggies until I could start for real yesterday.

I am having so much fun! Avocados, nuts, waffles layered with chocolate chips and smothered with sweet cherries, breakfast tacos... Well, the scale will tell, and we'll see what happens. The food is interesting and stuff I really like.

The down side is that I'm feeling full when I eat but hungry not long after, especially after lunch and supper. I feel like I did years ago on Atkins, when I ate strictly on the plan, lost weight, but would eat and eat all that protein and veggies but always felt empty. It's either the lower carbs, lower sugar, or I was really eating a lot more before than I realized. I'm trying to figure it out so I don't sabotage myself. So far I've gotten through by having two pieces of dark chocolate, which is allowed although not a part of the meals I'm eating. Then I have a couple of Altoids and that seems to help, plus I drink water so I'm not confusing hunger with thirst.

I learned a really cool trick for keeping a cut avocado from browning. I'll put that in a later blog.

Zoobee Zoobee Doo

Grandma!
Kevin and Andrew
Jake showing Zoe where we are on the map. He was really into tracking our progress on the map.
Sara and Teage-Papoose
Look Mommy, a snake!
A Young Harry potter
Monkeys, monkeys, monkeys
It's the only way to stand when you're looking at flamingos...
Cousins! Hayden, Spencer, Logan, Gracie, Zoe, Andrew, Jake on the Komodo Dragon sculpture
We had a great trip to the zoo Saturday. Kevin and Jessica came down from Ferndale with their three, Gracie-6, Spencer 4, Andrew 3. Elizabeth came from Shelton with Logan-6 and Hayden 4. Steve and Sara were up from Portland with Jake 5, Zoe 3, Leo almost two, and Teage 6 months.

The weather promised showers and sunbreaks and delivered showers and showers and mostly misty rain. As true Northwesterners, we thought nothing of setting out to the zoo with nine kids under 6 on a rainy day in January. Slickers and rainjackets and a couple of umbrellas were all we needed to get through the day, and spirits never seemed fazed, or even dampened by the drizzle.

All exept Elizabeth were there by 11:30, she joined us when we were checking out the monkeys. The kids stayed happy and energetic through 4 1/2 hours of ambling from one exhibit to another and a lunch break, wiith energy to spare at the end. (They were still clambering over the brass animal sculptures outside the zoo as we prepared to go our separate ways.)

Some of what happened-

*Jake age 5 followed a map carefully as we went from place to place.

*Gracie age 6 took lots of zoo pictures for her family with her Fisher Price camera (with a little help from dad and little bro Spencer).

*Tears happened only twice-When a monkey slapped the glass in front of Andrew's face, and when Steve helped Zoe into her coat against her wishes.

*Zoe 3 took care of pushing brother Leo the last hour in his stroller

*Elizabeth and boys got nose to nose with a lion (through the glass) before they joined us.

*Everyone got nose to nose with a Komodo dragon

*Teage was quiet and happy with his view from mommy's baby carrier, with never a fuss or tear.

*Spencer did his best to be a flamingo.

Hottest must sees for the 2-6 year group were:

"I want to see the elephants!" Jake

"I'm going to see the Komodo dragon!" Logan

"Where are the flamingos?" Spencer

"Grandma!" Gracie

"That's a snake!" Hayden