Dissolution's Solution

[Melinda]

I was just reading on J. Morris Hicks' blog about the great vegan meal he and a friend had at Candle 79 restaurant in New York. Made me want to go there, although that is a LOOONNNNGGG way for us to go!
It would be amazing if your wife could turn her culinary talents to creating fabulous low fat vegan dishes. I imagine there is a lot of competiton for high fat meat/dairy chefs, but not nearly as much for low fat vegan chefs. She could be in the forefront of the wave.

[Dissolution]

MixedGrains The first couple of months I did tend to over buy a little bit. Made soup out of most of it before it went bad. Have a fair amount of soup in the freezer now. Have adopted some new habits, like bell peppers, I rarely eat raw so I will cut dice them up and stick them in a baggy in the freezer. I'll mash up bananas and stick'em in the freezer if it looks like they will go bad before I can eat them.

Broadbean Thanks for telling me that. Getting feedback from a woman's point of view is extremely helpful. It's helps me to be patient and understanding and not bury her in the back yard (just kidding) (wait just to be clear, I was kidding about wanting to bury her in the back yard, I wasn't kidding about NOT wanting to bury her in the back yard, which would mean that I actually did want to bury her in the backyard.)(Besides the back yard is a stupid place to bury somebody)(just kidding)

fulenn I know right...If she would just use her cooking super powers for good...I would be a very very lucky man!

Melinda Wow, did you look at the menu of Candle 79?! It sounds amazing;

MUSTARD- GI NGER G RI L L ED TEMP E H
sweet potato purée, sautéed trumpet royale
mushrooms, brussels sprouts, lentils,
brown rice, sunflower seeds, apple salad,
cranberry-chipotle coulis

WI L D MUS HROOM- S QUAS H RI S OTTO
cashew cream, pumpkin seeds, fresh herbs,
frizzled leeks

S PAGHETTI & WHEAT BA L L S
truffled tomato sauce, roasted garlic, spinach,
cashew parmesan

GRI L L ED KAL E
haricots verts, beluga lentils, red onions, turnips,
avocado, sunflower seeds, spelt berries,
chive vinaigrette

Sounds a little high in fat for everyday, but I would LOVE to eat there. It's about 20 blocks north of the places where we were planning to go, but I'll have to see what I can do.

Oh yeah they have a cook book. http://www.amazon.com/Candle-79-Cookbook-Sustainable-Restaurant/dp/1607740125/?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318442772&sr=1-1&_encoding=UTF8&tag=heaeatheawor-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325

Thanks Melinda!

[Dissolution]

In honor of our friend Norm, I would like to announce today, that I have half a boil on my butt! Ok ok, for those of you that didn't get that and are now disgusted it means I hit the 50 pounds lost mark today.

It's a mile stone and that's great, but I have to focus on the next goal. When we were down south for the funeral, we were speaking to one of my cousin's and anyway the conversation turned to her and her husband coming up to see us and renting a cabin and going skiing. She doesn't snow ski, but wants to learn. Well silly me, I said, "If I can hit 220 by then I'll ski with you." I don't really ski, I'll explain in a minute.

The date has now been set 2/19/11, that gives me 70 days to lose 30 pounds (.43Lbs a day). Let's see what's happened so far;

9/27 - 10/26 - 29 days - 28Lbs - .97 a day (Beginnings are always fastest)
10/26 - 11/30 - 35 days - 18Lbs - .51 a day
11/30 - 12/11 - 11 days - 4Lbs - .36 a day

It doesn't look good for the home team...Weight loss is slowing as should be expected...I think. But I have a confession to make. Other than going to the gym twice to lift weights, I didn't exercise in November. Not because I didn't feel like it, well kind of. I feel pretty good most of the time, but the only time I can really get on the treadmill is after 9:30 pm (it's complicated). It's tough to get motivated to exercise that late in the evening, at least for me it is.

When I was exercising at the end of October I had worked up to where I could walk at 3.0 mph and twice during the 30 minute walk I would jog for 60 seconds each time (10 minutes apart). I have been on the treadmill for the past two nights. Last night I walked for 40 minutes at 3.2 mph, and at the 5,10,15,20 and 25 minute marks I jogged @ 5 mph for 60 seconds.

So anyways my hope is that by starting to exercise again I can achieve my .43 Lbs per day goal.

Of course I have to make it through the dieter's crucible starting tomorrow. The wife starts her baking tomorrow. I think most of next week will be candy making, then our trip to New York Thurs - Sat, followed by the cookies as soon as we get back. Last year she made 168 dozen cookies, this year she is planning over 200 dozen. I think the worst for me is going to be resisting the Chex Mix.

I'll talk about skiing in my next post....

[AlwaysAgnes]

Congrats on the semi butt boil!

The only place I ski is on my Wii. I don't have to go out in the cold and wet, and all my boo boos from crashing heal instantly!

[fulenn]

Congratulations on losing 50 pounds!!!!

I love to ski, but only cross country.

Keep on going!

Fulenn

[Melinda]

Congratulations on your butt!

[Dissolution]

My skiing story...

About 8 years ago, some friends of ours offered us the use of their timeshare week at a "local" ski resort. I was able to take the time off from work so we went. #1 son was already in the military, away at tech school. #2, #3 and #4 went with us.

This was in late February, possibly early March, I don't remember it being that cold. None of the kids had ever been skiing before, so we had to rent all of the equipment for the boys. That made it fairly expensive, so we were only going to ski one day on the mountain.

#2 chose skis and went to the bunny slope. #3 and #4 chose snow boards. #2 is the least coordinated of all of the kids, he took to skiing like a duck to water, he was quickly ready to move off the bunny slope to the real mountain. #3 and #4 seemed to be spending most of their time slamming their faces into the snow. They switched to skis also, picked it up quick and were soon following #2 to the beginner slopes.

At this time I had not had a heart attack, I was 35, smoked and weighed 310 pounds. I had been skiing once when I was in 8th grade, it didn't turn out so well, but in hindsight I had realized my mistake was I went straight and gained lots of speed. I did not use the side to side motion that regular skiers use to scrub speed off. So with this knowledge I decided to rent skis, and to be honest, this knowledge put into practice on the bunny slope, worked very well. I was skiing!

I had not been planning on skiing, I didn't play in the snow like the kids, therefore I did not have ski pants. I was wearing blue jeans, a leather jacket and sunglasses (yes I looked cool). So anyways, off I go up the mountain. The trail I got on was a gentle curve to the left and then a gentle curve to the right and then a nice long surprisingly steep slope to the bottom of the mountain. I had some problems at the beginning, steering didn't seem to be working right, couldn't figure out why. The corners scared me, I seemed to be having a problem turning, and not turning would put me into the trees. I worked my way down (combination or walking and skiing from one side of the trail to the other) to the straight steep section.

Let's pause for a brief physics reminder. Pressure increases heat.

At this point #2 who had ridden up with me, tried to help me down, had been to the bottom and back up, had come back to help. I told him to follow me down on my last stretch to the bottom. Off I went. Turned the skis, nothing, I'm not turning, I'm continuing straight down the mountain?! I turn the skis back the other direction, nope not turning, in fact gaining speed. I later found out from #2 that steam was actually coming off my skis at this point.

I can't seem to turn, I'm picking up speed, I decide the hell with it I'll just try to get down to the bottom of the hill going straight. Let me tell you, I have no idea why fat guys aren't in Olympic skiing events, because I was going FAST! Then I hit a bump, why would anybody put a bump on a ski slope!? I wiped out, crashed and burned, I slid, tumbled and slid most of the rest of the way down the mountain. I finally get to where the wife and #3 and #4 are stand and they all seem to be very amused. Then one of them points backup the hill and I see a ass wide, 50 foot long blue streak in the middle of the slope, from where my blue jean covered ass made high speed contact with the snow.

On second thought, maybe skiing this coming February isn't such a good idea, regardless of weight....

[Katydid]

Being that your wife is such a great cook, do you think that she would object to the gift of a great vegan cookbook? There are many gourmet vegan cookbooks availables. Tal Ronnen has a very well received on out: http://talronnen.ca/cookbook/. And as noted above Candle 79 and Millenium restaurant have great ones too. Not exactly good for your diet, as the recipes are all quite rich, but perhaps as a way to start convincing your wife that you can be a great chef and still cook (if not actually BE) vegan. Heck, even Charles Trotter put out a vegan cookbook (Raw).
Kate

[Dissolution]

Katydid She has stated many times that she will never cook "vegan" for me. She seems to be opposed to this WOE on some fundamental level.

She'll tell me how unhealthy and disgusting she thinks it is, and then when shopping she seems to enjoy finding me new foods to try, like red lentils and yellow split peas, stuff like that.

At home or around friends she will ridicule this WOE, but at a restaurant, she'll grill the cooks or wait staff to make sure nothing has added oil or animal products.

She'll tell people how proud she is of my newly learned cooking abilities, and at the same time brag about how she "isn't going to cook some stupid diet for him."

Now, she does have a weakness for cook books, she collects and reads them like novels. I had just been assuming that if I bought her one it would probably just wind up flying at my head. Maybe if I could find one written the "right" way, she MIGHT be receptive.

Thanks for the idea though...

[canadiangirl]

Congratulations on your butt boil and the weight loss!

Regarding your wife - have you thought of including her in your new WOE by appealing to her love of cooking? She's a chef, right? Why not ask her to come up with some mouth-watering no/low fat vegan recipes? Heck, encourage her to write a cookbook for all of us!

Maybe she feels that since you no longer eat her food, she's lost something she did to "take care" of you and show her love for you. "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach" and all. Personally, I say it's through his chest with a sharp knife! (kidding!!!)

Maybe if you find a way to include her in your new way of life OTHER than encouraging her to eat this way which, clearly, she's not ready to, maybe she'll be more supportive and not feel so threatened by this new and always improving you.

[nicoles]

I just caught up on your journal, DissolutionSolution. Wow - what a story, glad you are eating this way and seeing all the positive changes relatively fast!

My husband and I have noticed the ole "I eat like a pig and lose more" phenomenon from a few posts back, too. I always look over the food I ate the day before and see if I ate anything particularly salty to perhaps explain it -water weight gain really adds up!

She has stated many times that she will never cook "vegan" for me. She seems to be opposed to this WOE on some fundamental level.

She'll tell me how unhealthy and disgusting she thinks it is, and then when shopping she seems to enjoy finding me new foods to try, like red lentils and yellow split peas, stuff like that.

At home or around friends she will ridicule this WOE, but at a restaurant, she'll grill the cooks or wait staff to make sure nothing has added oil or animal products.

She'll tell people how proud she is of my newly learned cooking abilities, and at the same time brag about how she "isn't going to cook some stupid diet for him."...

She sound like two people - is she a Gemini? Just kidding.

Seriously, though, it does sound like she is grappling with self esteem issues, baggage from the betrayals of her first marriage and resisting the change that a new diet would bring - if food is a big part of her identity, she might feel that identity threatened, sort of like the sadness you felt after the Master Chef meal, when you were grieving for the old you.

And the old you could be fed her cooking and love it, whereas now you "reject" her cooking, and maybe it feels like you also reject her. Maybe she is rejecting you back, on a subconscious level, by refusing to budge on the veganism thing.

But on the other hand, with those little treats she brings back for you from food shopping forays, and her sticking up for you in company and in restaurants, it sounds like underneath it all, she is rooting for you and cares about you a lot.

But it's got to be hard for you! Cooking up that bacon should propel you into sainthood, stat!

Nicole

[Dissolution]

canadiangirl My wife is not a chef by her own definition, she says chefs have to have a culinary degree. As I cook more, I am trying to ask her more intelligent questions about cooking and spices and stuff like that. She really does seem to hate almost all vegetables.

nicoles Actually she IS a Gemini...

I got up and ate breakfast and did my normal stuff. Hadn't decided to go into work or work from home yet, so I started cooking lunch at 11:30. Rice and beans, with steamed broccoli and mushrooms (BTW steaming is my new favorite way of cooking mushrooms). I've decided to either move my higher calories meal to lunch or to consume a little more at breakfast and then just skip lunch.

The wife gets out of bed around noon, I get to enjoy about 10 minutes of retching noises because she doesn't like the way my lunch smells. I eat lunch and decide to work from home.

One of my Facebook friends (that I barely know) from high school posts that she's having a lousy birthday because she is in the hospital after suffering a major heart attack. So I wrote a private message telling her a little bit about my heart history, my current success, and the giving her links and information about Esselstyn, McDougall and Campbell. I finished off with;

Look, I realize you're still in shock, and the last thing you want is some acquaintance telling you what you should do based on their own personal experience. I would have probably blown off that information too, when I was in your shoes. But I've got to give it a try, cause maybe you won't ignore it, maybe I wouldn't have either, I'll never know.

She replied with "awwwwww ty for the information", doesn't sound promising, but was worth a shot.

I decided I needed to use the rutabaga I bought about a month ago before it went bad. I chopped it up and started to boil it with the intention of making clapshot (mashed rutabaga and potatoes). Then I saw a butternut squash that had been in the fridge for a long time and decided to cut that up and use it. After consulting with the wife I decided to make soup. I even got her to taste it in order to give me her opinion on what spices I needed to add to it. She said it actually tasted pretty good, which is a pretty high compliment coming from her. I had already put in nutmeg, ginger, salt, pepper, cardamom, she had me add more pepper, celery salt and just a splash of balsamic vinegar. It was very good, I ate two bowls full and froze two bowls.

So my niece calls from Wisconsin to inform us that my MIL is in the hospital because of diverticulosis. My wife is writing the name down so that she can look it up later, but I knew what it was and explained it to her. She asked me how in the hell I knew about that disease. (The real reason is because I just like watching the videos on nutrition.org, and just happened have seen one on the subject)(BTW if you don't know what diverticulosis is, I suggest you keep it that way, it involves pooping and the colon) I told her it was because it's one of the many diseases that vegan's rarely ever get. I got a dirty look for that remark.

Still a little sore from my jogging experiment, so I only walked this evening.

[Katydid]

Katydid She has stated many times that she will never cook "vegan" for me. She seems to be opposed to this WOE on some fundamental level.

She'll tell me how unhealthy and disgusting she thinks it is, and then when shopping she seems to enjoy finding me new foods to try, like red lentils and yellow split peas, stuff like that.

At home or around friends she will ridicule this WOE, but at a restaurant, she'll grill the cooks or wait staff to make sure nothing has added oil or animal products.

She'll tell people how proud she is of my newly learned cooking abilities, and at the same time brag about how she "isn't going to cook some stupid diet for him."

Now, she does have a weakness for cook books, she collects and reads them like novels. I had just been assuming that if I bought her one it would probably just wind up flying at my head. Maybe if I could find one written the "right" way, she MIGHT be receptive.

Thanks for the idea though...

Maybe you could buy YOURSELF the prettiest, glossiest, sexiest vegan cookbook you can find. Big full page color pictures of recipes. Then 'accidentally' leave it out on the coffee table for the wife to find. If she asks, tell her you bought it for yourself to get some ideas about seasoning and presentation and leave it at that. Bet she can't resist a peak.
Kate

[Dissolution]

Ok, two more items I wanted to mention from Yesterday. I decided to go to town last evening. I wanted to pick up a memory card for my camera, for the trip to NYC, and I needed kale (That still sounds weird to me). I invited the wife to go, and asked if she needed anything. I was gone only an hour and returned with a Walmart bad and grocery store bags.

I noticed she looked very sad, so I knelt down next to her chair and put my arms around her. She begged me not to leave her, and I assured her I would do no such thing. Then she asked me to stop the diet, stop shrinking and to get fat again. Cause I was smaller now, I couldn't protect her. I gave her what assurances I could, but told her I would not stop eating this way. I told her she could get small and become a vegan like me, but she said she could never do it.

Sadly though, I probably have a better chance of getting her to become a vegan than I would of getting her/us some professional counselling.

Ok, this next thing is pretty funny. One of the reasons I haven't given up coffee, is that's it's the last "food" link between us, and we take turns preparing it for each other. So last night she made the pot and fixed the first cups, then it was my turn later. After sitting in the pot for a couple of hours, even with it turned on, the coffee cools and has to be microwaved some before drinking.

I handed her her cup;

Me: Taste it and see if it's hot enough.
Her: Why do you always say that?
Me: Because I make your cup first, and I can't taste it because it has poison cow juice in it.
Her: Wait, what did you just call milk?
Me: Poison cow juice. Catchy isn't it?
Her: Ow, I think I just had an aneurysm.

Made me laugh...

Here's the dialog from this morning;

Her: Ugh! What's THAT smell?!
Me: Oatmeal?
Her: Well it smells horrible!
Me: It's oatmeal...
Her: I don't care what it is, it smells like crap!
Me: But it's oatmeal, you can make cookies with it.
Her: Turn the fan on please.
Me: I like cookies.
Her: (grumbles off)

In her defense this conversation did happen pre-coffee.

[Dissolution]

Maybe you could buy YOURSELF the prettiest, glossiest, sexiest vegan cookbook you can find. Big full page color pictures of recipes. Then 'accidentally' leave it out on the coffee table for the wife to find. If she asks, tell her you bought it for yourself to get some ideas about seasoning and presentation and leave it at that. Bet she can't resist a peak.
Kate

Oh THAT'S brilliant! Very very good idea! Thanks so much!

Just found out my SIL will not be coming to NYC with us. I had hoped she would, cause that was probably my best hope of being able to leave her and my wife somewhere while I went to Candle79. But, maybe if I could arrange to trip to Candle79 to "get their cookbook" she would see the place and maybe even decide to try it.

You've brightened my whole day up!