I'm always collecting Menus for ideas. This is TERROR TWILIGHT. A restaurant in Melborne.

We have a broth type bowl at lest three times a week these winter months.

John - I had a cheat day, too. On just day 5 of my effort. Yay me. I was in the basement caught up in the making of a lawn decoration for the upcoming “holiday” and next thing you know my wife called down. “Where are you? I just finished work and it’s almost 8:00, what’s for dinner?”

Oops. So we agreed to order a white pie. Thinking about my food log, I forced myself to limit it to two slices. But I guess my brain said ”while we’re at it…” and I made my way to the tin of my mom’s Christmas cookies. Had two. Then thought how rude that I haven't tried the cookies my daughter made with my mom on Sunday. Had one.

Three cookies. Now THERE'S self control. Normally that would be me just getting started. The log really helps me. As I contemplated a third slice and a cookie binge, I kept thinking about having to write it down. Lying to the log defeats the purpose, and I didn’t want to report an utter failure.

The rest of the day was good though. Influenced by the ”cabbage bolognese” above, I’ve taken to lightly braising a small pan of red cabbage in a few ounces of Rao’s sauce. I haven’t done the math on that, but I’d imagine it’s fairly low cal, nutritious, and it’s tasty and keeps me satisfied for a while.

Cabbage braised in Rao’s marinara sauce (only 20 cal per oz) seems tasty and low calorie indeed. I need to try different cabbages and find the one best for “noodle duty”. Maybe a Napa cabbage?

The ice has melted so I can resume riding to work this morning. There will be gravel in the bike lanes but oh well. My current bike commute is short but at least gets me outside and moving.

After yesterday’s alarming detour to takeout junk food, it’s back to healthy home-cooked food. This is black rice and quinoa (2 oz), stirfried cauliflower with Chinese sausage (3 oz), sweet potato (3 oz), DD’s shao mai (three, with extra thin wrappers), and seared salmon belly brushed lightly with carmelized Yoshida sauce (3 oz). Totaling 480 calories, or about the same as one of yesterday’s smashburgers. A lot more work to make, of course, but cooking is fun.

Weirdly, at my local H-Mart salmon filet is expensive but salmon belly is super cheap, like $3/lb. The belly is the best part of the salmon!

Looks good! I found some bags of stuff in the freezer. Decided it might be turkey chili. Threw it in the microwave, and sure ’nuff. Since it was made with turkey, I can be pretty sure I was looking for healthy at the time.

How’s the huge re-organization coming along? Any interesting trends, or is she just making her mark?

We have, it seems, layer after layer of duplicated, excess , and overlooked - everything. Six bags of slivered almonds, because we never can find slivered almonds and resort to buying another bag. Rinse and repeat for just about every category of pantry staple, from dried Chinese black mushrooms to balsamic vinegars.

Thanks to DD, all that stuff is now wrangled into tidy plastic containers with cute labels.

Of course, it is all stacked in the same crappy kitchen with insufficient storage, but I’ve just sent off a deposit on the new cabinets, inquired with a countertop fabricator, and am starting to investigate flooring alternatives. By midyear, I hope to be posting from a nicer and better organized kitchen, where just the right amount of slivered almonds falls immediately to hand.

I did a pantry/freezer/fridge organization before the holidays and became a mess again...so just recently did a quick inventory again. Could not locate a few things so ordered again. 🫤

FOAS, I've only had Sweetgreen bowls a handful of times. But many friends and co-workers that do not cook used them all 2020. During that time they offered a roasted chicken dinner with sides. A family of four ordering 4-5 salad bowls sharred with a chicken dinner seemed to please for a few days.

We only have one meal a day. 4-5 pm. No carbs before noon. But rarely have even lunch. I pull out a prepped sald or a hummus plate around 3-ish to snack on before dinner. I do make a great chia pudding i used to like for breakfast, but now seems to be a good 7pm snack. Or popcorn. DH likes cottage cheese, half and avocado with chili crisp...or a slice of cheese. Breakfast BC, (before covid) was always a bit of plain yogurt, granola, a bit of fruit. Dried or fresh or both and a few toasted seeds.

I recenly binged a great dietician that was a obese child. (i'll find it eventually). She is all about the mind and the psychological choices we make. Like JohnLiu's better meal over the junk food meal at similar calories but much more satisfying.

Do not agree with this...

"We all have very different metabolic needs so you can't rely on how someone else did on some calorie-controlled diet or stick to some totally arbitrary 2,000 calories for women, it's complete rubbish," he said.

For example, while a croissant is generally fewer calories than avocado and eggs on sourdough toast, the latter has a higher nutritional value and will keep you fuller for longer due to the fiber, protein, and healthy fats.

But do agree with this...gut health

Being aware of calorie intake as well as whole foods and smaller land and sea proteins is a no brainer. Better to know both calories and whole non-processed foods.

I used to think, if i had to categorize our diet, it would be Medeteranian. Never thought we are 'intermittent fasters', lol. Odd, now in a few years, we are never hungry.

Being aware of calories is not 'rubbish'.

Dead calories like waffles/pancakes, and croissants, and bagels, i agree are useless calories.

The statement isn't saying that being aware of calorie intake is rubbish; it's saying that trying to assign a number of calories to people based on so few factors is rubbish. In other words, it's foolish to think that every moderately-active woman between 31-50 should eat 2000 calories a day ... different people who meet that description will have different needs based on other factors.

John, this is really good low fat salad I came upmwith a few years ago. we love it!

Thai chicken salad

Fresh or steam fried dried chow mein noodles. The thin kind. Cooked until el dente. I rinse with cold water and toss with a bit of oil to keep from sticking together. Chill. I used a whole package of steam fried dried 170g because I had them in the pantry. I prefer fresh.

Carrot matchsticks, handful or more

Pea pods cut in half crosswise, handful or more

Fresh bean sprouts, small amount if you have, otherwise leave out.

Roasted peanuts, again a handful

Small amount of shredded cabbage or romaine

Green onion

Cooken chicken, sliced. Rotisserie is good

dressing:

1/2 cup chicken broth

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

1/2 tsp. Grated ginger

3 cloves chopped garlic

2 tbsp soya sauce

1 tbsp sesame oil

1/2 tsp. Tabasco or saracha

1 tbsp honey

I blend the dressing in the blender and serve it along side of the salad as it’s quite thin so I like to add more than I need to my bowl so I can keep dipping my fork of salad in the dressing as I eat it. I hope this makes sense

I struggle with calories while cooking. The reason being that while I am a little overweight and need to lose a little, my SO is very underweight and needs to gain. He is never going to be a big eater. He is 6 ft 5 in tall and around 180 pounds. So when I cook for us I try to do so in a way that is higher calories for him, just so that it goes further. When I am trying to slim down, I tend to eliminate carbs and especially sugar for myself. As a result, calories are reduced. So while sometimes I will make entirely separate meals, most of the time I just adapt what I am making already. For example, yesterday I made filet minion steaks,with onions and mushrooms and a salad. That was it for me. For him, I added a loaded baked potato. We grilled some chicken the other day. I made roasted broccoli to go with them, and roasted some potatoes for him. I made sort of a chicken, bell pepper and onion dishes with lots of spices and cheese on top. Put his over yellow rice, ate mine without it. Breakfast for me is almost always all protein, dieting or not. So while HE may get pancakes or homemade biscuits with his meal, mine is always some sort of eggs. Sometimes with meat on the side, sometimes not.

But that is a low carb way, you asked for lower calorie. I do heartily believe that no matter the diet, calories are the answer. Low carb tends to have other benefits for me as well, so I like it, But in the end reducing carbs reduces calories. FWIW, I recommend using the app Cronometer to log your food intake. I like it because you are able to enter your own recipes into it and it will calculate the nutritional information of the whole recipe, as well as per serving. And it lets you decide HOW you are going to measure servings. That is, per piece, or just dividing the recipe into equal portions, or by weight. I prefer to use weights when tracking food. I weigh most things in grams, as that is what has been recommended to me by professionals. I love my little food scale. Eventually, after using it over and over, you get used to what the portion you like looks like, and you do not have to rely on it so much. And it has a regular website, which I prefer when entering recipes. Its just easier to type and click on a big screen. Even though I like the app, I ALWAYS ignore the calorie suggestions. Cronometer, fitbit, my fitness pal, ALL take physical activity into account and always tend to recommend WAY more calories than makes sense. I walk a lot, up to 10 miles a day, and both Cronometer and Fitbit suggest that a good calorie goal for me is just under 3000 calories, because of that activity. Yikes. Every person is different as far as BMR and activity and how much energy activity burns, and the only way to make it work is trial and error, adding and subtracting calories and watching the scale. I think that because I have been walking so much and for so long, my body doesn't burn as many calories during the walks as it used to.

The key, IMO is FLAVOR. The difference seasoning makes in satiety is enormous to me.

Flavor, absolutely!

One of my goals for this project is to use it to explore cuisines that are interesting and tasty in addition to healthy and lower calorie.

I’ve been browsing ”Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art”, the majestic work on Japanese cuisine by Shizuo Tsuji (foreword by MFK Fisher). I love, almost worship, Japanese food, but other than some dalliances with miso soup, tempura, tamago, and sushi rolls, have never ventured far into it - in my kitchen, at least.

I did make a very tasty Japanese-ish fish dish recently, using one of my favorite fishes, mackerel. H-Mart had large whole Spanish mackerel, which disassemble much like tuna. Mackerel can be ”fishy” tasting, but if you soak the fillets is ice water, changed thrice, all that fishiness is gone. Then bring a pot of miso soup, just large enough to comfortably hold all the fillets, to a boil, turn it off, and slide the fillets into the soup. The ice-cold mackerel will both cook in, and cool down, the soup. When they both reach the same equilibrium temperature, the fish is perfectly done. Retrieve the fillets, brush them with sauce, and have a tasty, simple, and very healthy fish and soup dinner.

The sauce can be problematic. A typical sauce might be mirin, soy sauce, sake, and sugar - quite a lot of sugar - carmelized in a pan. Not very dietetic. But if you brush, not drown, it’s alright.

I think I’d like to investigate “one pot cooking”, if SWMBO will make me a traditional unglazed donabe pot. No doubt the recipes can be made in any pot, but Revereware would, I think, spoil the effect. Part of the problem with living with a potter is that she gets quite offended if you buy ceramicware, but is too busy to make you the desired piece right away. So a period of cajoling will precede the donabe and the one pot cookery.

Ah, the cobbler’s children go shoeless….

"...using one of my favorite fishes, mackerel."

Oh I love mackerel, it is a very tasty fish! But it stinks up the whole house -- I eventually banned DH from cooking it indoors, he has to use the grill on the patio (same with the deep fryer -- that is relegated to a cooking table out in the garage...).

SWMBO will be in San Francisco for the next few weeks, so my chances of receiving a she-made donabe are slim.

Accordingly, DD and I made a pilgrimage to Uwajimaya, the best Japanese grocery store in our area, to get a donabe. There were several, all lovely,from $25 to $48, And a squat, plain, ugly one, for $12. I picked up Ugly Pot, put it back, considered, then put it in my cart. It was ugly, but cheap and looked folorn. It was a real ”Anne of Green Gables” moment.

We left Uwajimaya with fewer bizarre foods than usual. Here is one. I’m hoping someday I’ll find a dinner guest who wants crunchy fried mini-crabs as an appetizer.

Later, at an interesting used bookstore, we found a 1949 copy of “Anne of Green Gables” for $45, which we did not buy, and a 1935 first edition of Steinbeck’s ”Tortilla Flat” for the ridiculously low price of $10, which we did buy. It was a good day.

Inspired, but still mindful of our calorie restriction, we made wor wonton soup, which is 150 calories per serving, one shown here in Ugly Pot. Lotus root, scallions, bok choy, carrots, enoki mushrooms. We forgot the Chinese sausage. For the wontons, DD used extra thin skins, which saves 10 calories per wonton.

Tomorrow, we are going to eat only Asian food. Starting with congee for breakfast, although rice is a challenge for this project.

Oh man, Anne of Green Gables was one of my favorite series, I read them all. More than once, LOL, my little 3 room country school had a limited library!

The soup looks good but I'm not sure I could eat the crunchy crabs, I can just imagine pieces of shell. Then again, they might be amazing, crumbled up and sprinkled over salad or soup...

Elery is also wanting to lose a few pounds, he got that second hip replaced the end of July and it's more problematic than the first one. Of course, I had to remind him that he's 8 years older, and he appreciated that a lot. Ahem. And, of course, I can always stand to lose 20 pounds, something about being 5 foot nothing.....

Good luck, and I don't think the pot is Ugly at all, it's nicely neutral and very utilitarian. Kind of a modern vibe!

Annie

A bowl of congee with toppings is about 200 calories, of which the rice is 90. Toppings to choose from include re/fried tofu, shiitake mushrooms with carmelized Yoshida sauce, roast bok choy, dried anchovies, lotus root, Chinese sausage, enoki mushrooms, ham in matchsticks, vinegared carrot, pork sung, and other stuff.

Congee is not as calorie-challenging as I feared. It isn’t a “low-calorie” meal but my project isn’t all about eating dietetic foods. It is also to remind myself of reasonable quantities of non-diet foods.

Hey John - I know this is supposed to be a cooking thread but I’ve been wondering how you’re making out. As for me, I lost about 15 pounds in the first two weeks and have now plateaued there. But what’s been astounding has been the effect on my blood pressure. Especially diastolic, easily down ten points, regularly. That number has been high for a couple years, even when systolic was kinda sorta ok. I hope this is more than a temporary effect!

Wow, I am really impressed! You're doing great! From my experience, significant weight loss can result in remarkable improvements to all sorts of health issues.

As for me, I haven't made much progress. Down about 5 lb in first three weeks, and much of that could be water weight. I've been "stuck" at 199 lb for awhile.

DD thinks I need to increase my calories. She, of course, is shedding weight like water off a greased duck.

I think I need to get serious about exercise. I haven't been cycling, for various reasons. I'm doing some weights, but not systematically - focused on left shoulder, which sounds/is weird, but the summer of house paint stripping left my right shoulder noticeably bigger/stronger than my left, which bothers me. I've also been skiing on the weekends. But nothing beats daily cycling.

LOL John, first I had to picture you with huge legs and skinny arms, now I have to modify that to a single big arm. I’m actually envious of such noticeable results - with exercise I can feel stronger and be stronger but to visually show more muscle seems to largely escape me.

I’m not pushing myself too hard in the exercise department. I figure that in order to maintain long term, I have to focus on habits that will stick. Unfortunately my history of sticking with rigorous exercise routines is pretty nonexistent. So I’m trying to focus on little things that are already part of my day, like shaving minutes off the dog walk route, opting for baskets vs shopping carts when possible. Baby steps. But I would like to get on my bike a bit as the weather warms.

The worst thing for me is wanting to drink my calories, in the form of coffee with something sweet or cream or both, alcohol and fizzy sodas. I drink the flavored zero calorie soda water but it isn't as enjoyable for me. I have a hard time drinking water, I'm not sure why but I just have resistance to drinking it. And some waters, especially my tap water, have a bad taste to me, sometimes metallic. I can't do aspartame anything.

I really have no tips of things that are both tasty fun and low calorie, other than fresh fruit for a snack. I lost 35 lbs last year but gained most of it back. I didn't even try for anything extreme, but I was still hungry all the time. I think exercise helps with that. Really I think the biggest challenge to dieting is exercise. I don't think you can be successful long term with one without the other . . . sigh. My biggest challenge is not cooking, it's hunger. And yes, I tried filling up on water ahead of time, no effect. I found no effect from upping my water intake other than having to pee more often. Sorry, I am a dieting grouch. Just keeping busy so not thinking about food is my biggest tip. Also stress relief strategies help. My dad is a basket case of stress and I want to drink or eat chocolate after most visits with him.

I used Noom. Obviously you need to eat high fiber, low fat foods, so lots of veggies. But even a smidge of fat ups the calories significantly. That's why fruit is my biggest snack tip. It's high fiber and relatively low in fat and sugar and is fun to eat. A peeled orange gives you exercise and also vitamin C, so great to eat this time of year. Later, grow some strawberries. It takes work to care for them and fresh off the plant they are delicious and lots of good stuff in them at that stage if you can swing it.

If your tap water has a bad taste, you should filter it. A good filter can greatly improve the flavor and also remove some of the junk that isn't not allowed but isn't good either.

Fat will always increase calories more rapidly. A gram of fat adds 9 Calories, where a gram of protein or carbohydrate adds 4 Calories.

Just be aware that the foods that we usually class as fruits generally have a lot of sugar, so something we class as a vegetable may be less caloric for the same quantity of food. Example: an orange is about 140g and 72 Calories; the same quantity of bell pepper or grape tomatoes would be about 44 Calories, less if you can tolerate green bell pepper.

I do filter my water. Still tastes bad to me. I drink spring water that I buy, that I can tolerate but not enjoy.

And I'm done with the "fruits have a lot of sugar." It's not refined and it's not that much when compared to other snacks you might eat which come with fats, chemicals and empty calories. The sugars in fruits are mixed with fiber, vitamins and antioxidants too. And fruit has no saturated fat. I wouldn't overdo it, but fruit is very good for a treat, far better than some refined sweet thing with the same calories. I have not found restricting carbs that have fiber in them does anything for me with weight loss, and not eating fresh fruits and fiber makes me constipated. I eat bell peppers and tomatoes too and greens and every other vegetable, I love them. Of course you could overdo on fruits. When I was counting calories, I found moderate consumption of fruits to be fun, low cal, fiber and vitamin filled and delicious and didn't destroy my numbers for the day. Fruit juice on the other hand, wasn't good, lots of calories, no fiber and yes, lots of sugar without any of the fiber and filling qualities of fresh fruit. Dried fruits also easy to overdo on the calories, they are so delicious I have a hard time stopping at one or two prunes or dried apricots. I also find that I enjoy the smaller fruits more, the larger ones don't have as much flavor. Smoothies which are so touted as healthy, tasted great but didn't fill me up compared to their calorie count. Anything that filling and satisfying and under 100 calories is great in my book.

But to each their own. I'm just suggesting eating fruits as a treat and enjoying them, instead of a lot of refined sweets which are everywhere tempting us. But sure, leave them out. Not for me, it's refined sweets that break my diet, not fruit. My gut is happier with whole food with fiber. I need the vitamin C right now too. I eat peppers and tomatoes too, almost every day, in soups and salads. Cooking anything with vitamin C reduced the amount of C so if you want the max vitamins, lots of crudites. I usually eat cherry tomatoes and peppers with a half a sandwich when I am dieting. Or on a salad with garbanzo beans. I make chopped salad with whatever fresh vegetables look good, peppers, celery, shredded carrot, broccoli, diced pea pods or green peas, etc. A nice way to start a meal. But if you want to add some salad dressing or cheese, there goes the diet. That's why I say you have to exercise or you end up eating like a bird and being hungry an hour after you eat.

I'm not a big water drinker, but in my experience, if filtered water tastes bad either a new filter is in order (the existing filter may be breaking down; this usually tastes worse than the unfiltered) or a different type of filtering is needed (whatever tastes bad isn't being filtered out by the existing type of filter). It's hard to say whatks causing the taste you dislike without an analysis of the water, though. Bottled water is certainly a solution; I just know that our tap water isn't very good tasting, and when we switched filter types, the water began tasting more like the spring water.

My point wasn't that the sugar in fruits was bad because it's sugar, but that it tends to result in a higher Calorie content; my comment would apply to starchy fruits and vegetables, too. You'll notice that I listed the Calories, not the sugar content, of the three different fruits (since all three are technically fruits.) If the topic were glycemic load, I would have gone into more about the sugar content and types.

Each person needs to find what works for them. If the fruits are contributing something that you need, you should absolutely eat them. (Personally, my system doesn't process fruit skins well, so I have to be careful with them ... I have to peel apples to eat more than a couple slices. However, my system is a bit ... well, it probably shouldn't be used as a comparison for anything.) I'm not trying to say that fruit is bad. Fruit is a great treat, and it's certainly much better than a candy bar or pastry. I was just giving more options that would be lower Calorie. Sorry if it sounded like I was criticising your choices; I didn't mean it that way.

I’ve often been lucky to live in places with really good tap water. NYC has, or had when I was a kid, good tap water. San Francisco gets its water from Hetch Hetchy, a mountain valley that was apparently as beautiful as Yosemite Valley before it was dammed, so an environmental crime - but, really good tap water. Portland gets its tap water from the Bull Run watershed high on the slopes of Mount Hood, and it is great water. Very soft, I never have to decalcify my espresso machine. So, I really like tap water. Sometimes we carbonate it, with a Sodastream. The water is minimally treated - they don’t even flouridate it, which is good for our dentists.

FOAS, that’s funny, if you visualize me as a sort of human fiddler crab.

The asymmetry is subtle, and I probably wouldn’t have gotten cranky about it, but there is also a marked difference in strength between the right and left arm, and not just in the gym. I’ve noticed that I favor the right for lifting things - heavy bags, etc - and that doesn’t seem right.

I went skiing on Sunday, when the rest of the US was watching the Superbowl. Boy did I get my comeuppance. Turns out that slowly following my daughter down the beginner runs is different from a day on my own, going down harder runs faster. My legs were thrashed. Ok, more things to work on.

The hope is to eventually be one of those active, sporty octogenarians, and I clearly need to do the work now for that to have any chance.

FWIW, I've read some findings that eating more fruit can help reduce sugar cravings.

And with all the newer research on gut flora, I understand eating lots of fruits and veggies feeds the bacteria that helps keep our weight in a healthy range.

FOAS, how's it going?

My report - I've adjusted pretty well to a daily 1,600 calorie target. Looking for groovy new diet foods got old (and expensive) so I just eat normal stuff, just less of it. Weight loss has been irritatingly intermittent - I plateau at a weight +/- 1 lb for a week, then gap down -2 lb, then plateau there for another week, etc. On average I'm losing about -1.6 lb/week.

I'd like to think skiing 1-2 days/week is building muscle, but I doubt it as I've turned into a Princess. Too windy, too snowy, just not feeling it, and I call time and go home. One recent day i skiied a whopping 2.5 hours. Having a season pass and living 75 minutes from the mountain is making me lazy. I've also crashed hard on my right shoulder 2X and think I'll be rehabilitating that joint this spring.

I’m not ignoring you, John, I was hoping to show my progress on an old shipping scale I won at auction. Based on your espresso maker, I think you can appreciate cool excess. I knew this would be on the large side:

But not this big. I went to pick it up yesterday and four guys struggled to lift it into my truck, so I decided there was nothing I could do with it at home, and left it behind.

More of an actual update, shortly.

What a shame you had to let it go! It looks so cool!

That’s crazy! Need a liftgate truck . . .

John - Today marks two months since you started this thread, and since I started my diet. Minor daily fluctuation notwithstanding, I think I’m ready to comfortably say I’m down 30. Overall the first 20-25 fell off, the last five or so have been a lot slower. I’ve added a bit of exercise to my routine, but not enough to where I can justify my plateau by blaming muscle gain! I feel like I’ve overcome something with my eating to where my cravings for garbage have largely gone away, and I don’t enjoy overeating. Historically one of my biggest challenges has been sweets, and I’ve made a lot of headway there. Interestingly, pretty much the only time I really want sweets is after a big meal. For example last night we went out, I overstuffed myself a bit at a Mexican restaurant, and as a result could have really used dessert. Lent keeps me in check for now, but I expect it’ll be a bit more difficult to manage after Easter.

I always thought I’d be happy at this weight, but now that I’m here and love handles remain, I really want to keep going for at least ten more pounds, preferably 20. Clothes shopping is desperately needed, but I’m trying to keep it to a minimum until I see where I land. Unfortunately it seems like sometime in the past I threw out clothes I decided I’d never fit into again.

I want to carefully add more exercise/activity into my life. I say carefully because my entire goal here is sustainability. Similar to my eating, I don’t want to add something that I can’t reasonably expect to maintain. I do need to fill my stretched skin with something though!

How are you doing? Has your slow but steady pace continued?

Related - I had read about the supposed benefits of intermittent fasting and kind of did a bit of it at first, but I’m glad I didn’t buy into it as maybe what's good is bad again:

"The study analyzed data on the dietary habits of 20,000 adults across the United States who were followed from 2003 to 2018. They found that people who adhered to the eight-hour eating plan had a 91 percent higher risk of dying from heart disease compared to people who followed a more traditional dietary pattern of eating their food across 12 to 16 hours each day."

https://wapo.st/3viUwsR

FOAS, Congratulations on the fruits of your efforts! My reply from this morning went POOF! perhaps due to links. The upshot was that sweets don't aid the digestion, though they stimulate the appetite before a meal, and the ”room for dessert” thing is real, being that sweets act on the brain to relax the stomach muscles and relieve the pressure of the full/overfull feeling. But that much is only from a cursory search for answers.

Re the article you linked, my first reaction to your paragraph was, ”But were they sick? A lot of people on diets are seriously on diets because they're already unhealthy and are trying to mend their ways.” The Post, in a display of unusually good journalism, but still with the infernal inverted pyramid that puts important details downpage, reported that not only were they sick, people with heart disease were particularly chose for the study, they were self reporting, which is highly unreliable where guilt and shame might attach, and the researches don't have any whys or hows yet. What they did report was an abnormal decline in lean muscle mass in the intermittent fasting group, which I find more immediately worrisome than people with heart disease having heart attacks.

The 11-hour span for getting food in the cafeteria at my university was uncomfortably compressed. Eight hours may well have people cheating from desperation, gorging at the time limit, not to cheat, etc.

You may know the antipathy I have for the diet industry. What you've self reported, getting cravings and sweets under control, and doing other health forward things, like a little more exercise, sound good!

Hi, remember me? I dropped off the face of the CF, or so said the kind forum member who sent me an email asking, not exactly, but kind of, if I were dead or in prison or what?

I haven’t posted in a while because, well, I’ve had nothing much to report. I haven’t been cooking and I haven’t lost any more weight. Getting into the “why” takes us into all manner of topics irrelevant to CF. Still, you have tolerated digression transgressions in the past, so I’ll offend once again.

(If only cooking content is desired, skip ahead to the end of this post.)

So, back in March, DD and I were happily sticking to our 1700 cal/day regimen and losing weight at a reasonable rate.

Then I got even deeper into the obsession that is skiing. I skiied a lot when I was young, light, strong, and fearless. Upon resuming this season, 30+ years later, I felt old, heavy, weak, and timid. My technique was obsolete, a relic of straight skis and stretch pants. I did drills on green and blue runs, watched lots of videos, took a private lesson. There were setbacks. I bought a pair of racy skis, named by DD “The Homicidal Skis”, which twice body-slammed me, broke my helmet, injured first my right shoulder then my left. But by now I’m able to command the Homicidal Skis and attack the hill, even the easier sort of black diamonds. All that occupied two months of every weekend and some hooky weekdays on the mountain.

The Homicidal Skis are on the left. My ski shop said, encouragingly, ” these edges are ridiculously sharp”, ”these skis aren’t meant for just skiing around“, and ”they’ll either teach you, or break you”.

SWMBO and I have agreed to disagree on how decorative skis are in one’s foyer. ”I can’t wait until ski season is over “ has been grumbled.

Another distraction in recent months was a curvaceous, vivacious lady, older than me, and bright blue. I met her at my neighbor’s, had to have her, and after a brief dalliance, she was mine. SWMBO even approves and looks forward to our threesomes this summer.

Here she is, a 1958 Austin Healey Bugeye Sprite. For a 66 year old lady, she’s tight and fast, restored for autocross. When I replace my expired racing helmet, we’re going to go kill some cones!

I also got a lift installed in the shop that SWMBO and I share - pottery studio on one side, car work on the other. It was expensive, but this is my last stab at retaining what’s been an important part of my identity all my life - a “car guy”. It’s hard to be a car guy when you’re 61 and no longer down for crawling under cars on an oily concrete floor. Many of my friends have given up working on cars; I’m trying to hold on.

On the home front, DD has plunged our family deep into vegetable gardening. We have dug up our front yard, covered it with raised planter boxes, and we have trays of starts all over the house and some brave little seedlings coming up in the planters, eagerly awaiting the start of Portland’s summer. We are not proven gardeners and, so far, it looks like the only crop we can count on this summer will be radishes, but we are hoping for more than that.

As a result of all this distraction, I’ve temporarily gone off my diet - although my weight loss is holding so far - and have cooked very little. I did, tonight, make salmon in garlic butter garnished with fried salmon skin, which DD paired with kale salad, pasta with a Marcella Hazan sage-butter sauce, and prosciutto-wrapped asparagus.

Seriously, this is the most cooking I’ve done in two months.

But normally I’m just eating salad and Costco rotisserie chicken.

My cabinet maker expects to deliver our kitchen cabinets in a couple weeks. The progress photos I’ve seen look great. They are of free-standing furniture construction, mortise-and-tenon joinery, floating panels, and chunky legs. In June I’ll finish and install the pantry cabinets and find someone to build the farm sinks and counters for the lower cabinets. Sinks will be soapstone and SWMBO wants commercial-style stainless steel counters, while I’m lobbying for soapstone. In July I’ll tear out the existing lower cabinets, move plumbing, and set the new lower cabinets in place, held to the wall with French cleats.

Here is one of the lower cabinets. I looked long for a furniture maker who would build custom freestanding kitchen cabinets with the construction of a dresser or credenza. I’m planning to paint them with brush marks, dents, and runs, as if they’ve been in the house since 1911 and repainted over and over.

In August I have a week-long ski camp high on Mt Hood, where there is skiing year-round. Shhh, don’t tell SWMBO about that! We’re going to an ”arts camp” where I’ve signed up for a drawing class (something else I haven’t done in decades), and we’ll go to Tahoe again this year. Sometime in there, we’ll then tackle the floors (thinking hardwood with floor outlet) and commission the cabinet maker to build an island with casters, undercounter baker racks and an undercounter refrigerator. It’s going to be a process but by winter, the kitchen should be finished, and rather cheaply as kitchen remodels go. It is genuinely daunting how much it costs to have a kitchen remodeling company “do” your kitchen; I want to do it for half price, or less.

That car is a little gem!!! SO pretty. You've been having fun. Better than being a skinny Minnie!

John, as always, it’s a treat to read what you’ve been up to!

Islay, it is like a four-wheeled motorcycle! With a motorcycle, you actively move around in the lane to maximize the distance from other cars, stay out of blind spots, and to get drivers’ attention. This little Sprite is like that. The controls are amusingly sparse. The windshield ”washer” is a manual pump you operate with your thumb, and the windshield ”wipers” are less effective than simply reaching over the windshield with a towel. There is no radio, the heater and defroster are theoretical, and the turn signal switch is a toggle on the dash that you manually turn off after the turn. The motor is the same displacement as a large motorcycle but at 70 hp, far less powerful. This is a hot rod Sprite: the stock ones had 43 hp! 50 mph feels like 100 mph and she turns like a go-kart.

She is a fun car for sunny days only. I wanted an Austin Healey badly when I was young, and I paid little enough for ”Bugs Bunny” that I should be able to scratch my childhood British roadster itch for a few years at essentially no net cost.

John, you're too cool! Really. So

mamy interests. I’m not even a car guy and I'm jealous of your shop. And your car! Straight out of a pixar movie!

Curious about your desire for freestanding cabinetry. For look or for potential function? Or are you going to take it with you when you move to Europe?

I'm jealous of all your skiing. This is the first year in well over a decade that I didn't get out once. Not happy about that, but my knees were too problematic, and weather not too enticing for local jaunts. Feeling a bit better for now, hoping they hold up. Maybe I’ll look for you at Mt Hood in August.

I’ve lost a bit of dieting motivation, but I’m still stepping on the scale obsessively to make sure I’m not gaining. As long as I don’t gain, I’m ok with taking a break until my next leg. One habit that’s stuck is eating a lot more fresh produce than I ever have before. And less fat and red meat. So while I’m not eating to lose, what I am eating is overall a lot healthier. That's gotta be good for something.

Glad to see you back, thanks for posting!

I love reading about what you've been up to, John! That car is just the bomb, but your details about it are hilarious! :)

The decision to have freestanding furniture cabinets came from musing about what kitchens were like in 1911, when my house was built. At that time, kitchens were furnished with freestanding separate pieces; modern “fitted” kitchens started in the 1920s.

I decided to maximize my limited counter space by turning the sinks sideways - i.e. instead of a sink 24” wide and 18” deep, to have a sink 18” wide and 24” deep, with wall-mount faucets. The undersink area will then be too narrow to easily get in there to work on plumbing, disposal, etc, unless I can move the adjoining cabinet out of the way and access the undersink area from the “side”.

I also thought that with space between the back of the cabinets and the wall, it will be possible to run plumbing and electrical conduit “on” the wall, instead of going “into” the wall, and to tinker with and modify said plumbing and electrical later on - add foot pedal controls for the faucets, a dock for a robot vacuum under the cabinets, etc.

Finally, I convinced myself that freestanding cabinets will allow me to do the kitchen in phases, rather than living with a gutted kitchen for weeks.

When I learned that the idea is very weird, it became even more attractive. Because, weird is good.

On the weight loss, FOAS, you’ve done amazing and I’m so so impressed. When you decide to resume active weight losing, let me know as I’ll need motivation to do the same!

The concept of an "unfitted" kitchen isn't at all weird over here. There are many companies specialising in them. Perhaps they suit the fact that many homes here are old. Googling unfitted or freestanding kitchen will get a lot of hits.

Unfitted kitchen seem to be a niche thing in the US but more popular in UK/ Europe - some of the makers I found were there, and their websites mentioned being able to take the pieces away. I don’t plan to take my cabinets when I sell the house, though. It’ll devalue the house too much and I also hope to pass the house on to my kids. Which creates an issue, as I may want to move in the next decade - either to another place in the PacNW or out of the country, depending on the local and national political situation as well as personal desire to downsize, live in a smaller town, etc. A bridge to be crossed, later.

What I do like about a fitted kitchen is that you don't have to pull out the oven from time to time to get at those pesky peas that did a nose-dive behind the cooker.....but yours sounds like it will be a wonderful enhancement of your house.

Went by furniture maker’s shop today and took this photo of one of the lower cabinets. He is starting to install the rails, shown here. These cabinets are chonky bois, as the kids say.

Wow, definitely some thick stock on those face frames!

Considering your plans for the finish and the shop space you have, I’d have been tempted to buy tools and have a go at it myself.

(Full disclosure, I’m all talk. I went that route, investing thousands in tools and then wimping out and ordering cabinets.)

That isn’t even a face frame, it is the actual exposed solid maple structure of the furniture!

I was waxing rhapsodic to SWMBO about the construction of our new kitchen cabinets when she said “I don’t see any difference between these and Ikea cabinets” and I am now laying down with a towel on my face quietly weeping.

Building the cabinets did occur to me but I was deep into stripping the house siding last year and just couldn’t imagine stacking on another project.

There may yet be an opportunity to ruin some good wood. The bid to replace the seven failing vinyl windows on our second floor with wood windows, replace three original casement windows on the landing, and repair three original double hung wood windows on the first floor, came in much higher than I hoped.

When prepping the siding I took out and rebuilt the three original casement windows on the landing. They work and look fine now, and I didn’t spend the $7,500 for replacements.

So I am thinking about trying to build a double hung window. If one succeeds, I can build six more and save, well, a bunch of money. I think if I keep it simple without a lot of lights and muntins, it might be feasible.

If building doesn't work, try architectural salvage. Fixing might be easier.

Our veg garden has progressed to yielding . . . the occasional salad.

Which we paired with a butter sage pasta.

We expect greater veg bounty, but hey it’s only May.

It is officially a wrap on ski season. I went up Sunday, it was hot, skiing in jeans and flannel shirt had me sweating, I took a break for lunch and, halfway through a canned magarita, realized we were DONE.

I feel real affection for my current ski boots. I’ve never before had ski boots that weren’t painful. I realized I’ve never actually had boots properly fitted. These babies are canted, punched, custom footbed, aftermarket liner, Booster strap, and they are Perfect. They are not my last ski boots - I hope to continue skiing until I’m 75 when the season pass becomes free - but probably are my penultimate ski boots.

SWMBO wants a trellis over the stairs leading up to our house. She has also been complaining about my pile of scrap lumber. I never throw away usable wood, because, you know, a tree died for that. I decided to build a trellis from scrap wood, so we will have a weird curved structure that looks like this (but painted).

For the uprights I ripped scrap 1/2” boards and boxed up some hollow screwed and glued posts. They are light and seem very strong. I think I may use this construction for my carport.