Blitherings – Page 159 – Ink, Yarn & Beer

Progression

Along the Trail

Overall, things have improved in the health arena. Weight loss, changes in personal habits, and, best of all, lower blood pressure. Readings are all 120 systolic, plus or minus a few, and 80 or less diastolic. A 2 mile run is pretty easy.

I began running years ago, but gave it up after a fall. Much to my pleasure, the old injury that forced my stopping running seems to no longer be an issue. My run is along dirt trails, in the shade of beautiful oak trees, and it could be the dirt and leaf matter on the trail provide good cushioning.

There is something so pleasant about running under trees! I visit them 3 to 4 times a week, but with each day, there is something new to notice, or to greet as an old and beloved friend. It is cool here, when the weather is hot, and though the humidity is higher under the canopy, the smells of earth and dirt, the sounds of the birds, and the sparkle of the sun on leaves always leaves a sense of peace and fulfillment. If I could, I would live deep in the woods – but since I cannot, I can come here, which is not too far away.

Red Whine

A Tale of BP, Wine, and Food

Red Wine

As I mentioned awhile ago, issues with BP have arisen. I always had low blood pressure, around 105 / 65, so when it started going up, I was in denial. However, it kept going up – and down – and up – and down. Finally, the diagnosis was “labile hypertension” which can be difficult to treat with medication. So, no treatment. My last visit to the doc ended with a threat of medication…but the fact is, I get “white coat syndrome” these days when BP is mentioned. Everything skyrockets – my BP, and my heart rate. At that visit, BP was 130 / 96 (not good) and my pulse was 98 (very not good). I argued that it was only in his office that everything went nuts. A deal was struck: record your BP and pulse 3 times a day, and I will see you in month.

Ha! I’ll show him.

Well, even though I am running, and can do 2 miles nonstop after a month, the BP is still up. Systolic (upper number) doesn’t go over 140, and the diastolic (lower number) hovers between 80 to 90. Not seriously bad.

“Get into the Mediterranean diet,” he says. “This means drink red wine.”

I am not a fan of wine, but like Scotch so much more. But, orders are orders, and . . . I begin to drink 5 oz. of red wine at night. More alcohol in 4 days than I drink in 6 months. My scotch intake is minimal, like once a month. The day I begin the red wine, the BP takes a serious drop, running as low as 113 / 76 and a pulse as low as 66 with occasional moments of stress bringing it up to 88. Running pulse is toward 160 at the high end, with a rate of about 84 a couple of minutes after resting. Pretty good recovery rate.

I’m sold. And, I find I am liking red wine. The current bottle is a 2011 Syrah from California. 1 drink left. Oh, dear, I am running out of medicine!!

So, now I drink wine. I can handle it, but am amused at how lazy it makes me – really, I get so tipsy! My husband says it is because I don’t drink, and need more practice.

Tracking It

The Mediterranean Diet can be found online in varied formats. For me, it really is not a difficult thing to do as there are really no major dietary changes necessary. The biggest shift is less meat, but I can live with that. I like fish, so I eat that, and try to have tofu once a week. More fruits and vegetables are easy to do. What I have given up is sugar, but I do eat dark chocolate. I really do not miss it, but know that if I give in and eat some cookie or a sweet, I’m hooked back on the worst drug in the food world. That is my nemesis.

One thing, though, I find a big help is to keep track of what I eat. I like FitDay.com, which comes with a lot of good things, although their food database is not as good as Fatsecrets.com. But, I prefer FitDay as there are not forums and emails from the site – they leave me alone! I can create custom foods, too, and record a lot of different things.

Tracking my food is not rocket science, and I refuse to get specific about weights and amounts. What I do watch, though, is the daily carbohydrate totals, and work to keep it below 100 g., and the fat to 25-35% of the daily calorie total. Many foods have fat, so I do watch what I add to my diet, but fat is also necessary for good health. I don’t eat butter anymore, nor am I using low fat dairy products – all nonfat. So, I have given up my beloved St. Benoit yogurt and turned to the nonfat Greek yogurt at Trader Joe’s. It is thick, which is what I like, not thin and runny, which is what regular nonfat yogurt can be unless gelatin has been added. I seldom eat bread, but prefer grains. Oatmeal and quinoa are my favorites. I also eat nuts. And I eat little, if any, cheese.

An average daily caloric intake is about 1200 calories, which, for me, is fine. I’ve also lost about 9 lbs. over the past several weeks, and it goes up when I eat salty foods, but has been going down regularly, and holding steady, too, which indicates a metabolic adjustment.

Altogether, life changes are occurring, and certainly ones which are improving my heatlh, my outlook, my activity levels. Most importantly, they are ones which are quite easy to live with and readily incorporate themselves into my life in general, and ones which are easy to become habitual.

Invasion of the Computer Snatchers

Unless you build a computer from the ground up, you can expect to find software and applications on your new one that you don’t want. Having just bought a new laptop, I expected this, but was pleasantly surprised to find I needed to get rid of only a few things. These included McAfee anti-virus software and MS Office in a sampler format. There were others, too, but I did not spend hours hunting and uninstalling from the control panel in Windows. I have spent hours doing this in the past – maybe companies are getting wise, or there is just less stuff out there needing to be pre-installed because of our ability to connect so easily to the internet to get what we want.

Invasion

The problem lies in software being forced on you, piggybacked onto the “free” stuff you like to have. Utilities, software, whatever, often come with applications that you don’t want at all. Some are easy enough to remove, others are insidiously difficult. Even if you are careful, checking off boxes to prevent programs from being installed, some creep in. Constant vigilance! At times, even uninstalling a program that inserts itself into your browser does not remove it. Checking off “do not use” in your browser preferences doesn’t get rid of its hijacking your preferred home page.

One of the worse offenders is AVG. It’s a search engine. ASK is easy to get rid of, but AVG, no matter what I did and how I searched for cures to get it out of Chrome, I couldn’t. The simplest solution was to uninstall Chrome, being sure to save my “whatevers” it asked I wanted saved, and then reinstall Chrome. Problem solved – but it can return if I find something else I like that is “free.”

One program that has really helped is Revo Uninstaller. You can find it www. revounistallerpro.com. There is a freeware version, too. I came across it in my searches on how to get rid of AVG, and while I had already uninstalled AVG at the control panel, and uninstalled Chrome, I have the free version onboard, and will use it whenever I try something new.

Freeware producers create some great things! Avast antivirus is one. VLC media player is another. Other programs I download from online include Auslogics Disk Defrag, Adblocker, Faststone, Foxit Reader, Photoscape, and of course the different browsers. Freeware does require work on someone’s part, and donations are always welcomed by these people. I bought a license to Opera 3.12 umpty-ump years ago because I found it worth my while – and now it is free. And, I still use it – the newest iteration, of course.

So, I am dithering around with crapware and bloatware I don’t want, getting rid of things as I install things I want. I think I reinstalled Chrome at least three times on the laptop, but soon enough, I will have the critter where I want it, and can be done. Then it will be time to move onto other things far more interesting to me.

Trying to Turn the Tides of Time

Change!

I am not getting younger, have some labile blood pressure problems, and have been out of shape for a long time. Where I live, there is not a decent health club within a reasonable distance (for me, that is about 3 miles! I hate driving places!). I’ve been here 7 years, and have become increasingly more blobbish in my life style. And I have become fatter and fatter. Typical of most people my age! And, perhaps, being American. Add to this, I injured a knee several years ago when running because my running partner was a ditz, didn’t stay on her half of the path, saw something, and ran right into me to go see it. That stopped my running altogether. I tried doing things like running in place, but that really was bad, on both knees.

About a month ago, I decided I was just tired of it all, and with a new running partner, set off. We were both in awful shape, and huffed and puffed and managed to run a teensy fraction of .6 miles. Still, we did it. And we continued to do it every other day, and one day on the weekend, in the morning. Last Saturday we ran our usual route, through an oak grove on a dirt trail, with an elevation shift of about 100 feet, most of it in one spot, up a steepish hill, and did it twice. 1.2 miles! We stopped in between, but the fact is, we did it. And, this morning, in a different area of town, still under the oaks on a dirt trail, we did 1.7 miles nonstop. Very slow pace – 3.17 mph for me – but it was nonstop. And, when I took my pulse after about a 5 minute rest, it was 60-64. That is good!

In addition to getting exercise, I am also really looking at what I eat. Overall, my diet is healthy, except if I get a cookie in my hand. Sugar gets me every time. I eat vegetables, fruit, nuts, grains, but I also eat a fair amount of red meat, although I seldom grab anything to eat I have not made myself. Checking labels is something I do religiously, especially for salt.

The fact is, I eat a lot of carbs, and a lot of fat. Carbs add to the weight, and fat clogs the arteries. I am trying to shift my diet to one which is more plant-based, meaning adding beans, such as tofu or, today, cooking up a mess-of-beans in the pot. Things which do have fat are focused on the healthy fats, such as in fish, nuts, and olive oil. I am keeping red meat to once a week. Eggs vary in amount during the week because most mornings I dislike the smell too early in the day. Snacks are dark chocolate or nuts or seeds or fruit. I am shifting, I hope, from half-and-half in my coffee to a soy creamer, but that will have to be one that tastes good, and may be hard to find. At least I am not using the pure cream I used so long!

So, a few recipes have been found that I like. One is a simple smoothie, which is great for an easy afternoon snack: one banana, 1 c. of almond milk (the 60 calorie variety) and a splash of vanilla extract. Today, I am cooking up some dried beans, and after soaking them overnight, I am cooking them with onion, pepper, jalapeno, and multiple herbs and spices.

The final thing, I weigh myself daily, and log my foods. I use FitDay, which I have used for years, and it continues to offer a lot, is easy to use, and more than anything, I am comfortable with it. I also am recording my blood pressure, which does not thrill me, but it has to be done because it bounces all over the place, both systolic and diastolic. In general, though, the diastolic (lower number) doing pretty good, and the same with the systolic, but I have had some extremes in the past few days – 150/80, and 128/96. One day I had 119/78.

Yes, I want to lose weight, but I also want that blood pressure to become more consistent, and better blood work. It is taking time, but after just a month, I can see some pretty good changes. I ain’t no spring chicken, but don’t want my clockwork sprung and not working!

3 + 6

Three colors used to create six spheres. I think they are oranges or lemons or something.

Colors are Daniel Smith New Gamboge, Winsor Newton Alizarin Crimson, and Graham Phthalo Blue.

Everything was done with glazes.

Some glazes were pure color, others were mixed colors.

Some were more successfully done than others. Some shadows are pretty nice. Some of the fruits are nice. Some are pretty bad.

I used three primaries, and got greens and oranges and purples. I created some mud. I had to be patient.

At times, I let the paper sit, and watched granulation occur. Other times I rolled the paper around to get colors to blend more evenly. On a few occasions, I lifted out pigment with a slightly damp brush in an attempt to make a smooth transition of colors in different areas.

And when I ate up all the white highlights I had left, a few even got a touch of Chinese white. A no-no, but had to be tried.