Three weeks: Mediterranean Diet. Stakes/goal/steps/rewards. Aside: yachting book.

[oak]

Friends, threw weeks from today I have my second appointment with my nutritionist. At our first session she recommended a Mediterranean diet, which sounds good to me.

Stakes: This is clearly one of the most important decisions I'll effect, up there with mitigating my stuttering and getting sober.

Goal: By end of day July 4, to have (1) meal prepped for the rest of the week (2) have snacks ready.

Steps: You know me: I'll use my beloved anxiety exposure hierarchy. More details anon.

Rewards: Hallmark movies on Amazon Prime, listen to Frank Sinatra while playing video games, playing Pokemon Go on the town square, visiting the coffeeshop to see the pretty baristas.

I'll have more to post, perhaps later today with a preliminary plan, but thanks to the advice of our good friend Mental Fairy, I am taking this slowly.

A final word

I have a companion thread to this one, about a fascinating book I'm reading, "A Voyage for Madmen". There are parallels, friends.

[oak]

Hi friends!

I'm 1/3 through my ten days off of work through July 4, and I've made some progress yesterday and today:

1. Yesterday I checked out both print (library) and Kindle (the amazing and awesome Libby app*) about the Mediterranean diet. I'll anxiety-exposure-hierarchy to ease into looking at them for recipe ideas.

2. A long time fan of Goya brand sofrito (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofrito), I am making plans to make homemade mirepoix (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirepoix) tomorrow.

I say this because the resources the nutritionist gave me indicate having half of my plate as vegetables. Currently, 0% of my typical food is vegetables.

3. At the grocery store I also got some fruit!

4. I also want to be careful to (1) drink more water and (2) be more diligent in recording what I'm eating into the Omada app.


* A library card is a priceless treasure!

[oak]

Friends, two brief, happy updates during this July Fourth weekend:

1. I "hated vegetables" understandably so, since back in the 80's my mother would boil brussel sprouts and then coat with butter and salt.

Today I used my air fryer for the first time to put onions, peppers, cherry tomatoes, and mushroom on my homemade pizza. Yum!

Larger lesson: we have new resources nowadays. We can try new things in 2022 for existential crises (such as sleep apnea).

2. My mirepoix turned out... okay.

Happily, due to the modern miracle (yes, I mean exactly that) of the Libby app, I have three or four other Mediterranean diet recipes to try.

In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy a baklava (my reasoning: if I am going to eat sweets anyway, I may as well stick with the Mediterranean diet, more or less).

Thanks for listening!