Diet, Day Four

Today is Thursday, day four of The Carb Lovers Diet and the last day of our Golden Week holiday. We specifically chose this time to begin the new diet because it gives us about a week to actually be grumpy without being in public. 

As of yesterday I've lost  4.85 pounds. The diet itself is still very doable. The food is not bad, and while you're supposed to drink a lot of water to stay hydrated, they have a special recipe for green tea concoction which includes fresh squeezed fruit juice. It's actually very good. 

Yesterday was spent getting new supplies for the diet. My wife went online to try to find some of the grains and seeds that we can't find in Japan easily, for example, pearl barley. For some reason you just don't see it in stores here. She also ordered unsalted sunflower seeds and polenta, the latter of which we've never even heard of before. After that, we went into Osaka tried to find some low fat cheese. Finding low fat anything in Japan is difficult. Of course, many Japanese foods are naturally low fat, but finding any kind of unusual or even slightly unusual western food is difficult. For example, we can find cheese, but finding low fat cheese is not easy. In the city, you can usually find something, but not necessarily the specific types of cheese you are looking for. For example, I can find low fat cheddar but that's just about it. Finding something like low fat cottage/gouda/feta cheese isn't possible. However, you can full-fat versions of most types of cheese, an improvement over what we could find when I came to Japan back in 1983. Then you were lucky to find any kind of real cheese. Velvetta was about the best you can get. 

Going into town yesterday was good for a couple of other reasons. My wife wanted to do some shopping at new store a co-worker had recommended. She was looking for a watch but couldn't find it, so she bought something else. While she was doing that, I went to Tower Records (yes there actually is a Tower Records still in Japan) and bought the new Paul Simon CD So Beautiful or So What along with the tribute CD for the earthquake victims in Japan, Songs for Japan. The proceeds from the latter go to help the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami victims.

Today is going to be spent hanging at home. I'll watch the Mariners/Rangers game, listen to music, and wash my wife's car (yesterday, I washed my car for the first time since I broke my arm): A relaxing end to Golden Week.

Catch-up time

So much water under the bridge....

A year ago today I was in a Japanese hospital recovering from two surgeries, including an emergency colostomy. Yesterday, I started a new diet to try to lose weight before entering the hospital again, on July 15th, to have a third, hopefully final, surgery to reverse the colostomy.

This goal of this "new" blog will be to attempt to document the diet and the days leading up to the surgery, of course the surgery itself, while at the same time addressing other issues permeating my life at this time:

• My 85 year-old parents' declining health, including my fathers rapid slide into dementia and my mother's severe vision problems. Foremost on this issue will be my brother's and my attempt to get them the care they need without losing their house and property.
• My children, both living in Washington state: My 22-year-old son, who graduated from Evergreen State College last year and has since been taking care of my folks living in the guest cottage on my parents' property, and my daughter, 21, a junior at Western Washington University.
• The inconvenience of having broken my right arm on April Fools Day.

First off, it's been a pretty crappy past twelve months. To recap: I missed almost all of first term in the 2010-11 Japanese school year, which runs from April through March. I entered the hospital on 4/09/10, and had the first surgery for Diverticulitus. An infection developed, necessitating the second surgery five days later. Then, on 5/06, my father-in-law passed away. I was released from the hospital on 5/26, and returned to work on a very limited basis on 6/21. Because of my health, my wife and I had to reschedule our summer visit back to the States to Christmas/New Years, and I spent the beastly hot summer recovering my strength at home. I went back to work, full schedule, at the end of August. When we finally did get back to Seattle, my parents' health problems dwarfed mine. We felt so sorry that we could do so little from Japan, leaving the bulk of work on my younger brother's shoulders and, of course, my son's: I don't know what any of you were doing when you were 22, but I know what I was doing and while it was a lot of fun, it wasn't very responsible, the reverse of my son's situation. Finally, the reversal surgery was scheduled for the two-week spring break marking the end of the Japanese school year, but after going in for blood tests and camera work and five days before the surgery was scheduled, my doctors revised their original estimate of recovery time from two weeks to possibly four, meaning I would again risk missing the start of a new school year. I felt I couldn't risk putting my school through that again for what is basically elective (but really REALLY desired) surgery, so we postpone it till summer, meaning we will once again be unable to get back to the States for summer vacation. And then April Fools Day came, and on the 2nd I'm back in the same hospital, seven days shy of the one-year anniversary of my first admission (and just four days and one workout after joining our local health club/fitness center!).

And yes, typing with a broken arm is no fun at all.

Finally, the diet: My wife and I are trying out The Carb Lovers Diet. We are doing the "7-Day Kickstart Plan" over the Golden Week holiday. Yesterday's menu was as follow:

• Breakfast- Banana-Nut Oatmeal, coffee, and the last of some bottled sports drink.
• Lunch- Express Lunch Plate (a wedge of low-fat cheddar, a sliced-up apple, and some crackers)
• Dinner- Chicken Pasta Primavera
• Snack- Almond Butter Crackers
• Lots of water all day

Overall, not too bad. Oatmeal with nuts and fruit is one of my standard breakfasts which I like a lot. The lunch left me hungry, but my wife really liked it. Dinner was delicious, but a needed more prep time than the book indicated. Part of the reason is that I like to get all the preps taken care of before I start cooking. Also, I fried enough chicken for several of their meals, which we can freeze ahead. Finally, almond butter is hard to come by in Japan, so I made some from a delicious Rebecca Wood's recipe while I was preparing dinner. Finally, the snack of the almond butter on rye crisp-bread was great.

I forgot to weigh myself yesterday, but will do so today and post any weight loss as I go along. My doctor wants me to lose 15 kilos (33 lbs, a frankly unreasonable goal that would put me back at my high school weight). I'd be really happy losing 10 kilos (22 lbs, a reasonable goal and one I think I can obtain).