Grocery shopping list for August 2021

This post is the thirty-second in a series and the eleventh to chronicle diets. 

3 August

The effort required at the beginning of last month to make the shopping list for my blog exceeded the (admittedly not always very broad) limits of my patience, particularly because of all the rigmarole involved in locating files to include along with the text, and I decided to put a stop to the practice. I wrote in my end-of-year memorial for 2021 some words outlining my reasons for quitting the exercise I’d religiously kept up since December 2018 (with only May the next year missed because I was out of the country). You can read more of my reasoning when the time comes for that post to go up on the web.

The present blogpost will chronicle, for old times’ sake, highlights in my weight maintenance though I’m not really putting my heart and soul into it anymore; habit compels me to write each morning, so what you’re reading is like the final wriggles of a fish landed on a pier, its mortality escaping in futile change and turns, the thin air failing to sustain its quest for life, although a new idea might bring me to turn the direction I navigate for a route through the contravening currents in the shoals of obloquy.

4 August

After eating something early in the morning, before dawn, at a time when I’m usually up writing, I had an urge to update the app on my mobile phone in order to record what I’d just consumed, and was forced to check myself with a reminder – “I’m not doing that anymore.” The day before I’d also checked myself when I picked up the supermarket receipt as, by this point in time, it wasn’t necessary to snap a photo of these stray pieces of paper with their faint thermal traces that show the date of purchase, the name of each item bought, and the prices paid at the checkout. In the past I would load such images with their files to the cloud so that I could open them on my PC and store them in a folder ready for when, at the beginning of the new month, I would do the painstaking work needed to get everything uploaded so that it would be available for public scrutiny.

9 August

Went for milk today at the IGA, as well as other purchases, most of which I picked up because I knew at some point that I’d run out. Milk is probably the most important single purchase I make in any month, as, without morning coffee – I couldn’t possibly operate! 

Here’s a snapshot of my progress for the part of the month. I continue to record my morning weight using the scales and the Fat Secret app – the screen grab showing how it’s evident that 82.9kg was the lowest reading I’d ever seen. Even though 85kg was my target I’m tempted to sit just a little under that level in order to allow myself to be able to enjoy the occasional indulgence.

So for example you can see a spike on 2 August, as the first of the month saw me eating with friends and consequently putting on 900g overnight. When I’m alone I can regulate my weight – for example on 8 August I had, for my main meal, a serving of about half-a-kilo of chicken wings, and lost 700g overnight. A cheap alternative, chicken wings also reliably let you drop kilos (and I adore the crispy flavoursomeness of this wholesome treat).

Overall I was resting at a point that was reasonably static even given some unnerving peaks and satisfying troughs. In fact, just by eating an extra handful of cheese and one apple more I can put on half a kilo without even looking at any other item of food, a tendency that just goes to illustrate my susceptibility to weight gain. Some people are naturally liable to putting it on, while others can add any number of casual morsels to their daily intake without negative repercussions. I had a comment from a friend with whom, a generation ago, I worked at an automation company in Tokyo, who commented on a Facebook post that he’d never had occasion to even think about limiting carbohydrate intake and, despite that fact, had with age grown no bigger at his middle. Tim’s thoughts were a tonic for me, showing me how obesity isn’t necessarily universal though, as Dr Nanda, my general practitioner, noted when he spoke with me on more than one occasion, people who make up the population are heavier than they ought to be, and he blames Coca Cola for this trend. Like an old-time Presbyterian elder considered by coevals as one of the elect Tim is to be fair one of a lucky but small number.

13 August

Went to Woolies in Wolli Creek to do some shopping for a friend and at the same time picked up low-carb snacks and nuts. They have a good selection of nuts at this branch, including Brazil nuts and pecans – both of which I bought in separate packets.

15 August

I’d needed to order more medicated shampoo, so had earlier on called the pharmacy I use in Pyrmont and made a mental note to pick up the new bottle at the same time I went to meet with my psychiatrist. But due to the new lockdown regime I decided to do my psychiatrist’s appointment via Skype. I also placed an order on Sunday night at the Woolworths website (see below) where they actually have a low-carb bread option in the database, adding a number of other things to my shopping basket to fill up the order so that it would be worthwhile (the delivery charge is $15). 

16 August

My weight chart as it stood this morning:

If you spend a moment looking at this image you can see a low point of 82.9kg that fell a week prior and, on subsequent days, eating a bit too much – without being egregiously silly – I disappointingly gained weight. Minor lapses, I assure you! Nothing as dramatic as, say, a trip to a Thai restaurant for a plate of pad see ew (which I love but which my diet proscribes) though it was possibly due to the fact that I’d stopped charting consumption on the FatSecret app, or maybe because I’d stopped using the kitchen scales (on the 15th I put them away with the teapot and the toaster). Whatever the cause of the increase, a week of concerted effort was required to get me back to my “new normal”.

17 August

Just before midday an email had arrived from Woolworths notifying me that the swedes I’d ordered weren’t in stock. As a result of this discrepancy as well as a few others, the final charge would be revised downwards, the email saying “The pending charge on your credit card used for payment will be reduced by $6.10 prior to payment finalisation”. 

At 1.40pm the delivery happened, a young woman leaving the three bags next to the front door and skedaddling quick. She’d arrived in a regular, dark blue hatchback, unlike in the old days back at Pyrmont when a uniformed driver would come in a badged two-tonne truck. Shortly after this occurred I went to IGA with my houseguest to buy more food (including a swede) and especially to get kitchen paper towels, which were in short supply and which I’d forgotten to order on the weekend at the website.

18 August

I’d seen a charge on my credit card and thought that, because of this fact, I’d expect a refund, and when nothing came through, hoping for clarification, this morning I got onto the website and started a chat with someone at Woolies. I gave my order number and was told that a downwards revision had already been applied to the charge, so I signed off and went back to my usual browsing and my social graph. 

22 August

Drove to Pyrmont to pick up the medicated shampoo as my panic attacks had, with the use of antidepressants, fallen away. While out that way I stopped at Coles in Broadway Shopping Centre to buy some food, including chicken wings, meat, and low-carb snacks. The purchase total was about $143. I also bought a loaf of low-carb bread while I was in the store as most retailers don’t stock it, for example Woolies in Wolli Creek (which is closer to my home).

23 August

My house guest bought milk on this day as the 1-litre bottle I’d bought a few days earlier had almost run out. I messaged him to get some while he was getting his Covid inoculation. On this day my weight chart looked like this:

29 August

Went to buy milk from a bread shop as I had houseguests. My weight loss chart looked like this: